Bharti Airtel, India's largest telecom services provider, today announced a strategic collaboration with China Mobile under which the two companies will work towards the growth of the LTE ecosystem and evolving mobile technology standards. Airtel and China Mobile will also work towards shaping up a joint strategy for procurement of devices that include Mifi, smart phones, data cards, LTE CPEs and USIM.
The strategic collaboration aims to bring together the largest mobile operators from the world’s two largest mobile markets ��" China and India. China Mobile and Airtel are also among the founding members of the Global TD-LTE initiative. An MoU was signed by Mr. Xi Guohua, Chairman, China Mobile, and Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Airtel.
With both China and India on the cusp of large scale roll-out of high speed 4G data services, China Mobile and Airtel plan to share relevant network as well as product knowledge (specifically for new technolog ies like 4G), best practices and technical learnings to enable delivery of world-class affordable services to customers. Airtel and China Mobile will also work together for development of relevant technical standards and in ter-operability testing.
Additionally, as founders of Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI), China Mobile and Airtel will cooperate on standards and products development, and promoting a robust ecosystem to accelerate the commercialization of TD-LTE and evolving 4.5G/ 5G technologies.
Sunil Bharti Mittal said, ''We are delighted to announce this landmark agreement with China Mobile. India and China account for nearly third of all the mobile subscribers globally and this partnership will provide a major platform for development and deployment of 4G and future mobile technology standards as both countries enter a phase of explosive data led growth. We are confident that the exchange of best practices and innovations will help in delivering affordable high speed mobile internet to the masses and contribute to the Indian Government's 'Digital India' vision.''
Shares of the company gained Rs 0.35, or 0.1%, to trade at Rs 349.75. The total volume of shares traded was 77,100 at the BSE (1.42 p.m., Tuesday).
