Thread by @stockifi_Invest

Mega-Thread on the sultan of Indian telecom and India's Richest Telecom tycoon: Sunil Bharti Mittal

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1) Sunil Mittal was born in 1957, in an Aggarwal family in Ludhiana, Punjab.

2) His father Sat Paul Mittal was a Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab and a member of the Indian National Congress.

3) Sunil attended Wynberg Allen School in Mussorie for a while before moving on to Scindia School at Gwalior.

4) Later on he enrolled at the Punjab University from where he graduated in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts and Science.

5) Sunil was so ambitious & business-minded from a young age that he began to import scraps and bicycle parts when he was just 18.

6) Eventually he moved to Mumbai to pursue his dreams.

7) In Mumbai, he went on to build a small-scale project to manufacture stainless steel sheets and sell them.

8) This experience made him good at sales and persuading people, the two key traits of any successful entrepreneur.

9) In 1980 along with his brothers he started an Import Enterprise named Bharti Overseas Trading Company.

10) In 1981 he purchased importing license from exporting countries in Punjab.

11) Later he obtained a dealership with Suzuki Motors and imported thousands of their portable electric-power generators from Japan.

12) In just a matter of years, his business was thriving, and he became a self-made millionaire.

13) Being a first-generation entrepreneur is no easy task as he had to face several challenges.

14) In a few years government banned the import of generators to promote manufacturing within the country and he had to shut the business and look for other business avenues.

15) Blessed with a high level of ambition and an astute sense of business, he dared to tread into the business sectors dominated by industrial giants like the Tatas, Birlas, and the Ambanis.

16) While traveling to Taiwan he came across push-button phones and in 1984 he started assembling them in India.

17) Later he launched Bharti Telecom Limited and by the early 1990s, he launched India’s first fax machine, cordless phones, and other telecom gear.

18) Luck also favored him in 1992 when the government invited bids for a mobile telephone, and he was successful in bidding for one of the four mobile phone network licenses auctioned.

19) However, he collaborated with the French telecom group Vivendi who agreed to do business with him although he was a small-timer in those days.

20)In 1995 Bharti Cellular Limited was formed to offer cellular services under the brand name AirTel.

21) Sunil Mittal introduced a new era of mobile phones in India and Under his direction, the company became turned successful and, in a few years, became the first telecom company to cross the 2-million mobile subscriber mark.

22) Bharti Airtel is the subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises & is the 2nd largest telecom company in India.

23) It was not often that you read a name of an Indian company on the top tier of the world, but Airtel changes that trend.

24) By launching ‘IndiaOne’, the country’s first private national as well as the international long-distance service provider, Sunil brought down the STD/ISD cellular rates in India. This contributed to Bharti’s success greatly.

25) In fact the success of his business prompted the Prime Minister of India to select him as Co-Chair of the India-Africa Business Council.

26) Over the years he stepped up from one success to another as his enterprise grew to become India’s largest telecom enterprise.

27) Today Bharti has joint ventures with several global leaders like SingTel, SoftBank, and Del Monte.

28) He believes that it is his duty to give back to society. Thus the Bharti Foundation, the philanthropic branch of Bharti Group was launched to support social causes.

29) The foundation operates more than 254 schools and provides education to over 46,000 children from weaker sections of society.

30)His awards column boasts of multiple awards of which Padma Bhushan offers the shining glare of He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2007.

31) He was also awarded Telecom Person of the Year, Philanthropist of the Year, and Insead Business Leader of the Year.

32) He was honored with an invitation by the then French President Nicolas Sarkozy in G-8 nations meet where the Internet was discussed as a prime topic.

33) Sunil Bharti Mittal owns Lutyen Delhi’s biggest mansion.

34) Trivia: As he was born on the 23rd of October, he is said to be quite superstitious about the number 23.

35)One of his favorite quotes is ‘Us entrepreneurs are like junkies, looking for the next big fix’.

36)As per Forbes, he is the 12th richest person in India with a net worth of US $14.8 billion.

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