Airtel launches virtual pets on the mobile

Company release, March 7, 2005

New Delhi

Airtel, India’s leading mobile service provider, today announced the launch of Virtual pets on Mobile. With the launch of this new and innovative service, Airtel becomes the first service provider in the country to provide the Mobile Pet facility. Such mobile applications have already become immensely successful in other mobile markets like Japan and South Korea. To experience the service, an Airtel customer using a GPRS connection just needs to download the Mobile Pet from Airtel Live portal - a multi access entertainment portal on the mobile phone, which offers a variety of content in the arena of movies, music, cricket and mobile games for all its customers. The range of Mobile pets currently made available to Airtel customers includes a Dog and a fish, to be subsequently followed up with other pet options as well. The service is expected to find a special appeal amongst customers who are pet lovers but do not have the time to take care of them or they might be living in houses which are too small to keep a pet.

According to Mr. Atul Bindal, Chief Marketing Officer and Director, Bharti Cellular Ltd, “Customers are increasingly looking for new means to be engaged and entertained through their mobile devices. The launch of the virtual pet service by Airtel for the first time in the country represents our latest attempt to go beyond the already popular mobile content, which includes ring tones, wallpapers, games etc. I am confident that with the launch of many similar innovations by Airtel, it would redefine the mobile telephony experience of all our customers.”

Additional Details about Mobile Pets:

After downloading, a mobile pet say a fish from Airtel Live – customers would need to take care of their virtual pet, just like they would do incase of a real pet fish. Airtel customers would need to feed their virtual pet fish at a designated time, play with it, change the water of the virtual fish tank at regular intervals. Incase the pet is neglected then there is a possibility that the pet fish might die. To get a new pet fish, Airtel customers would then need to download it again from Airtel Live. The service has been affordably priced between Rs. 50- Rs. 99 per download.

The mobile pet service has been introduced with the help of partners like Mobile2Win and IMI Mobile.

About Airtel Live

Airtel Live is a multi access entertainment portal on the mobile phone, which offers a variety of content in the arena of movies, music, cricket and mobile games. Properties, which can be experienced and downloaded, include games, color wallpapers, video clips, polyphonic ring tones, music messages, jokes, news, stock tickers etc. Amongst the most downloaded content from Airtel Live in the year 2004, included highest selling games like Van Helsing and Spiderman. While the most downloaded ring tones include- title track of the movie Mission Impossible and Dhoom. The popularity of Airtel Live has been absolutely phenomenal, it has now reached a penetration level of 15% of the customer base of Airtel. Airtel Live can be accessed through Voice (by dialing 646), SMS (sending keyword to 646) and GPRS (Airtel Live mobile portal) on http://live.airtelworld.com or the web www.airtelworld.com

About Bharti:

Bharti Tele-Ventures is one of India’s leading private sector provider of Tele-communications services with an aggregate of 11.06 million customers as of end of January ‘05, consisting of approximately 10.24 million mobile customers. The company today offers mobile services in 21 out of 23 circles in India. The company also provides fixed - line services and Internet access over DSL in 6 circles. The company complements its mobile and fixed-line services with national and international long distance services. The company also has a submarine cable landing station at Chennai, which connects the submarine cable connecting Chennai and Singapore. The company provides reliable end-to-end data and enterprise services to the corporate customers by leveraging its nationwide fiber optic backbone, last mile connectivity in fixed-line and mobile circles, VSATs, ISP and international bandwidth access through the gateways and landing station. For more information, visit www.bhartiteleventures.com

For further information please contact:-

Deeba Ali /Prem Subedi

Rediffusion DY&R

Telephone no: 51669349/ 26512658 /59/97

Fax – 51669350