On the receiving the award Sunil Bharti Mittal said, “This is a tremendous honour and I would like to thank the GSM Association for considering me worthy of this award. This award is a tribute to India’s telecom growth story, Bharti’s vision and the emergence of Indian telcos on the global stage. It has been a privilege for me personally and Bharti Airtel to have been a part of this telecom revolution that has delivered affordable telecom services for all and has transformed the lives of millions across India.”

GSM Association Chairman Craig Ehrlich said “Sunil has built an incredibly successful business from scratch, one which has had a truly transformational impact on our industry, on the customers he serves and on India’s economy. His brave and ambitious strategies will continue to resonate across the country, our industry and the business community globally, becoming a benchmark for emerging markets worldwide. We congratulate Sunil, on what has been an immense personal contribution to the vitality of the mobile world."

Bharti Airtel is India’s leading private integrated telecom company. With an innovative outsourcing model, dedicating major resource to customer service and outsourcing the IT and the networks, the company has been able to reduce tariffs from more than 20 cents a minute to less than two cents, catalysing a real shift in the economic model for emerging markets.

“He is now extending his Midas touch to Indian retail and Indian agriculture.   I just know he will do for these two sectors what he has done for mobile - and Indian consumers will be the big winners,” added Craig Ehrlich.

About GSMA Chairman’s award
The GSMA Chairman’s Award was first established in 1995 and recognises people or organisations that have made a real difference to the mobile industry- pushed the industry into a whole new dimension. Some of the previous awardees include Jorma Ollila, former CEO and now chairman of Nokia; Sir Christopher Gent, former CEO of Vodafone, and Zhang Li Gui, former president of China Mobile.

About Bharti   Enterprises
Bharti Enterprises is one of India’s leading business groups with interests in telecom, agri business, insurance and retail. Bharti has been a pioneering force in the telecom sector with many firsts and innovations to its credit. Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company, is one of India’s leading private sector providers of telecommunications services with an aggregate of 57.34 million customers as of end of December 2007, spanning Mobile services, Telemedia services and Enterprise services. Bharti Airtel has been ranked amongst the best performing companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list 2007. Bharti Teletech is the country’s largest manufacturer and exporter of telephone terminals. Bharti has a joint venture - FieldFresh Foods (P) Ltd - with Del Monte Foods India Pvt. Ltd., to offer fresh and processed fruits and vegetables in the domestic as well as international markets including Europe, USA and Middle East. Bharti has a joint venture - Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company Ltd. - with AXA, world leader in financial protection and wealth management. Bharti also has a joint venture for an asset management company - Bharti AXA Investment Managers Private Ltd. - with AXA IM and AXA APH. Bharti has recently forayed into retail business under a company called Bharti Retail Pvt. Ltd. It also has a joint venture - Bharti Wal-Mart Private Ltd. - with Wal-Mart for wholesale cash-and-carry and back-end supply chain management operations in India.