'They will always have more capital,' says Airtel's Sunil Mittal on battle with Ambani's Jio

Sunil Mittal, Founder and Chairman Bharti Enterprises, on Friday said that there would not be a monopoly in the telecom sector in India. Mittal was speaking at Business Today's India@100 Summit in a session moderated by Rahul Kanwal, News Director, India Today and AajTak.

The Airtel chief also stated that telecom is not meant for first generation entrepreneurs and it is for those with deep pockets.

On the battle between 'Mittal and Ambani', he said, "In Jio, we have a very dominant, strong and powerful competitor. It keeps us on our toes. For running a good enterprise, you need capital, talent and focus."

In terms of capital, he said, "I don't think so we can match that. They will always have much more capital as they (Reliance Jio) are a larger industrial house. So, therefore you know your limitations compared to that."

However, in terms of talent and focus, I think we can take them (Jio) head on and better, Mittal added.

On Airtel's 5G services, he said ours "will be best in class."

Mittal described 5G as "data on steroids" with two special features: slice & dice (matching individual data needs) and low latency (which would help in remote surgeries).

On the much anticipated 5G rollout, he said, "5G is now around the corner. We are in full readiness and at the perfect timing. The government this time has put up a lot of spectrum because 5G requires large chunks of spectrum to be effective. We will start with big cities, and gradually spread our services to key towns and then others."