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Forecasting a gloomy future for telecom sector aspirants, top mobile operator Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said that all the new players will "collapse" within three years.
"All new players will collapse within 36 months. These firms will take at least 12 months to build their network and 24 months after that they will struggle to survive in the market. I feel it does not make a viable position," Bharti Group Chairman and CEO Sunil Mittal told PTI at GSM Mobile Congress.
Mittal's almost echoed the views of Vodafone, whose CEO Arun Sarin had on Tuesday said that only one or two new players would remain in the arena and consolidation process will start in the telecom sector.
He also desired to buy spectrum from the market, if in case it did not get the additional frequency from the government.
"Who buys them or not, after 36 months is not clear... our position is that please don't give spectrum to anybody at the cost of our (existing players) growth path," Mittal said.
Bharti Airtel has achieved 60 million subscriber base (both mobile and fixed) and one billion minutes of traffic is going through its network per day.