From Borrowing Rs 20000 For Business To Becoming The 6th Richest Man in India

Mittal is engaged in the transformation of telecom into a lifestyle business, ranging from calls to games, from movies to music, making a big play for the Indian mind-share with Bharti Airtel Triple Play, Telephone, Broadband and TV, on a single line.

Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal is the chairman and Managing Director of Bharti Group, which owns India's largest GSM-based mobile phone service, Airtel worth $9.5 million. Ranked as the sixth richest man in India, Mittal today heads the USD 5 billion Bharti Group. Forbes magazine ranks him among Asia's self-made billionaires with a whopping net worth at some USD 11 billion. As a teenager Mittal always had an inclination to do business. After his graduation he teamed up with his friend to form a small bicycle business with borrowed capital of Rs. 20,000. By 1979, Mittal moved out of Ludhiana to Mumbai. Mittal’s lucky break came in 1992, when the government began issuing licenses for mobile phone services for the first time and he clinched a deal with the French telecom group Vivendi for the Delhi cellular circle. On his trip to Taiwan Mittal got fascinated by electronic push button phones and in 1982, introduced them to India, replacing the old fashioned, bulky rotary phones. The year 1986 witnessed the launch of Bharti Telecom Limited. Mittal is engaged in the transformation of telecom into a lifestyle business, ranging from calls to games, from movies to music, making a big play for the Indian mind-share with Bharti Airtel Triple Play, Telephone, Broadband and TV, on a single line.