Sunil Mittal at HTLS 2025 LIVE: The ad that changed everything for the Bharti Airtel Chairman
Sunil Mittal at Hindustan Times Leadership Summit LIVE: Bharti Airtel founder and Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal spoke to former G20 Sherpa and former CEO of NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant at Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2025 on Saturday.
Sunil Mittal started his first job in April 1976, when he was 18 years old. ₹20,000 loans from his father. He currently has a net worth of $34.2 billion (approx. ₹3 lakh crore).
Sunil Mittal LIVE interview: Sunil Mittal on Airtel’s future
Talking about the future of Airtel, Sunil Mittal evaluated whether the company wants to remain a telecom operator or enter the artificial intelligence market. “We are a company that understands customers’ needs and does a good job,” he said.
Mittal stated that having a sovereign cloud has become a necessity given the geopolitical issues, adding that it is unwise to rely on companies like Google and Microsoft.
Sunil Mittal LIVE interview: Airtel’s only factor to survive despite competition
When asked about the competition, Sunil Mittal said Airtel should be interested in one player in particular, making a veiled reference to Reliance Jio, which was launched in 2016 and disrupted the market.
“We managed other players. The only factor that allowed us to survive was our people and the talent we had,” he said.
“So while the launch eliminated 6-7 companies and triggered consolidation, Airtel stood its ground and grew,” Mittal added.
Sunil Mittal LIVE interview: Chairman, Bharti Airtel on Africa business
Talking about Airtel’s Africa business, Sunil Mittal said: “The first 10 years were very difficult…It was like a shock. We started with the same tactic – low cost, massive expansion, but it took 6-7 years to crack the market.”
Sunil Mittal LIVE interview: Sunil Mittal reveals the ad that changed everything
“We were not importing phones, we were producing phones. We were doing well in the late 80s, but I wanted to do more.”
He explained that what started it all for Airtel as a company was the government advertisement he read during a holiday in Goa in 2001. Before this, the company sold Beetel landline phones with operations in Mumbai. However, later Airtel clinched its license to operate as a telecom operator.
HTLS 2025 LIVE: Who are today’s speakers?
Speakers at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2025 on December 6 include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, CJI Justice Surya Kant, EAM S. Jaishankar, Bharti Airter Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah, Indian women’s cricket team coach Amol Muzumdar, cricketer Deepti Sharma, UP CM Yogi Adityanath, Delhi CM. Rekha Gupta, Prof. James K. Galbraith, Michael Kugelman, Kate Sullivan de Estrada, Google DeepMind executive Pushmeet Kohli and actors Aamir Khan Hugh Grant.
Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2025 LIVE: What is this year’s theme?
Hindustan Times Group’s largest event, Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2025, continues. Theme; “Transforming Tomorrow” reflects the spirit of innovation, resilience and reinvention that defines our era.
