Bharti Airtel's impossible survival story | Intermission E03 - Bharti Airtel | The Ken

In January 2013, Airtel was in free fall. Profits had collapsed for 12 straight quarters. Revenue was sliding. It was buried under a $10.7 billion bet on Africa that wasn't working. Within a year, 13 of its top leaders would walk out the door. Most companies don't survive a meltdown like that. Airtel did — and went on to outlast every wave of technology, every regulatory ambush, and Reliance. Twice. Over three decades, the company has made it through price wars, near-bankruptcy, a botched overseas acquisition, and two incursions from Reliance. Each time, it weathered the crisis and came back stronger. Today, Airtel serves over 400 million customers, posts quarterly profits north of ₹7,300 crore, and earns more per user than any rival in the industry — even as Jio leads on subscribers. This is the story of three men: the boy from Ludhiana (Sunil Mittal), the chartered accountant who became the fourth Mittal brother (Akhil Gupta), the soap salesman from Hindustan Lever (Gopal Vittal) and the behemoth they built. Tune in! ---------- You can also watch/listen to the entire episode on: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Bjc... Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... ---------- We also have an interactive webpage to explore the history of Bharti Airtel with reading lists, infographics and source notes: https://the-ken.com/intermission/the-... ---------- Chapters: 00:00 — Introduction 4:09 — Chapter 1: Ludhiana — India's industrial Manchester 16:01 — Chapter 2: Delhi — School of power & hard knocks 41:07 — Chapter 3: Policy pivot and partnership model 1:09:29 — Chapter 4: The Reliance juggernaut's first attack 1:31:06 — Chapter 5: Akhil Gupta, the 2000s, and the art of financial judo 1:54:43 — Chapter 6: The Singaporean pillar 2:03:32 — Chapter 7: Gopal Vittal, the flawless executor from HUL 2:29:37 — Chapter 8: The Africa no-yes-no-yes story 2:45:02 — Chapter 9: The Airtel culture 2:59:48 — Chapter 10: The zero rating debacle 3:11:28 — Chapter 11: The three-body problem and the 2G scam 3:21:59 — Chapter 12: The Reliance juggernaut is now "Jio" 3:52:05 — Chapter 13: Airtel after/without Sunil Mittal 4:19:43 — End Credits ---------- Credits: Hosts: Rohin Dharmakumar, Seetharaman G Podcast Producer: Vidhatri Rao Director: Vijay Subramaniam Video Producer: Vishnu S Sound Design and Technical Producer: Rajiv CN Lead Researcher: Raghav Batra Art Direction: Kavipriya OG Data Visualisation: Anuj Debnath, Ihina Purohit Production Agency: Nesara Films Creative Direction: Sunayana Kashyap DoP: Subash KP Animation:⁠⁠ Karthik N Video Editing team: Sarthak Pujar, Jayesh Sahu Colourist: Akhil Raj Graphic Design and Styleframes: Anusha Sarah On-Set Production: Veeresh and team Audio: ⁠⁠Murthy and team Spot Edit: Girish Set Design: Saanvi Joshi, Thejaswini Promotions: Pranav Pate, Adhavan RK Writer (Microsite): Brady Ng Editor: Sumit Chakraborty Product Design (Microsite): Praveen Gopal Krishnan, Ritika Sanikere, Sushmita Vavilala, Karan Kumar 'Intermission' Title Track by Sameer Rahat ---------- About Intermission: Intermission dives into the histories of iconic Indian companies. It was produced with vital support and assistance from Zerodha, our sponsor for season 1. Disclosure: Zerodha’s perennial fund, Rainmatter Capital, is an investor in The Ken. About The Ken: The Ken is India’s first subscriber-only business journalism platform reporting on business, technology, and startups in India. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://the-ken.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ and explore our stories, newsletters, podcasts and more. Follow The Ken on socials: Instagram:   / theken_web   LinkedIn:   / the-ken   Twitter: https://x.com/thekenweb/