Jan 11, Colombo: Bharti Airtel Lanka Private Limited, a subsidiary of the Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel Limited, one of Asia's leading integrated telecom services companies will begin its operations in Sri Lanka from Monday (12) to launch 2G and 3G services in the country.

Bharti Airtel will be competing with four other cellular service operators in Sri Lanka for its growing market of mobile users. Tigo (Celtell), Malaysian Dialog Telecom, government-owned Mobitel and Hutchison Telecommunications are the current mobile networks in Sri Lanka.

According to the president of Bharti Airtel mobile services with around 30 percent mobile penetration and a growing rate of two million users per year Bharti Airtel is expecting to grab a considerable market share in the next few years. The company ahs invested US $ 200 million for its operations in Sri Lanka over the next five years.

Sri Lanka now has 2.7 million fixed access subscribers, 7.9 million mobile and 200,000 internet and email subscribers.

Expecting the competition the other cellular operators have reduced tariff rates and are offering discounts.

A sixth mobile RTEC Mobile Lanka by Global Electroteks Limited with an investment of US $ 100 million is to start providing mobile and fixed telecommunications network by the end of this year.