Airtel is eyeing rural areas like Andhra Pradesh for increasing the revenue as such areas have very little mobile phone penetration and offer lots of scope for the operators.

Bharti Airtel plans to add 3,500 towers in Andhra Pradesh by the end of December to cover 90 percent of its population. The company feels that there in enough scope in the state as mobile penetration is still only 20 percent as compared to other states like Tamil Nadu, Kerela and Karnataka.

Airtel is confident of adding more customers in the state through strong network back up, better service and low call charges. “In the year 2007-08 Airtel added 3 million customers which accounts for 36 percent of the total population going mobile in the state. However the aim this year is to seek semi-urban and rural markets to increase our share. The target is to get 50 percent new connections from rural areas from 30 percent in the coming days” said Elango T, chief executive officer, Bharti Airtel, Andhra Pradesh circle.

Airtel also plans to increase the distributors from 800 as of January 31, 2008 to more than 1,000 during the next one year. Furthermore it also contrives to increase the retail outlets from the current 70,000 to 100,000 during the same period.