Airtel’s Sunil Mittal lauds Mukesh Ambani, says “we had to run to catch up…”

New Delhi: Sunil Mittal, chairman of Bharti Airtel praised his market rival Mukesh Ambani for Reliance Jio’s deed to introduce 4G technology in India, which forced him to “catch up”.

Speaking at the Indian Mobile Congress in New Delhi’s Pragati Maidan, where the 5G services were launched in India on Saturday, Mittal said, “I would like to remind Mukesh (Ambani) when he gave a lot of pace to 4G and we had run very fast to catch up with it. When COVID hit, the pulse of this nation did not stop even for a minute. Our work continued round the clock and its credit goes to Digital Mission”.

Country’s three telecom giants – Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea participated in the Indian Mobile Congress event as Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the much-awaited 5G services initially in the 13 major Indian cities.

#WATCH | PM Modi inspects an exhibition at Pragati Maidan where he will inaugurate the sixth edition of the Indian Mobile Congress (IMC) and launch 5G services shortly.

Chairman of Reliance Jio, Akash Ambani briefs the PM on the shortly-to-be-launched 5G services.

(Source: DD) pic.twitter.com/tjF0RWfZV9

— ANI (@ANI) October 1, 2022

Apart from Mukesh Ambani and Mittal, Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla also lauded PM Modi’s vision of ‘digital India’ while stressing the need of the 5G in the civilian as well as corporate sector.

Mittal was also quoted as saying by news agency PTI, “We are proud and very fortunate that we have amongst us a leader who understands technology meticulously. Many leaders appreciate technology but its granular understanding and linking it for the progress of the country, according to me what Modi Ji can do no one else will be able to do.”

Meanwhile, Mittal informed that Bharti Airtel’s 5G service will be available in eight cities from October 1. Airtel is also gearing to roll out 5G services in various cities across India by March 2023.