Sunil Bharti Mittal started with a small bicycle-parts business and built Bharti into a telecommunications group whose flagship became Airtel. [1][2]
From bicycle parts to Bharti Airtel
Mittal entered business at 18 in 1976, setting up a bicycle-parts operation in Ludhiana. Contemporary accounts put the initial capital at Rs 20,000 borrowed from his father, while Bharti describes the venture as the small manufacturing business from which the group began. [2][1]
He moved from manufacturing into trading and then telecommunications. Bharti imported portable generators, manufactured push-button telephones and related equipment, and entered mobile service after India opened cellular licences to private operators, launching Airtel service in Delhi in 1995. [1][3]
Airtel became the central business in the fortune Mittal created, expanding beyond India into a multinational communications company. Bharti also developed interests outside mobile service, but its path from a bicycle-parts workshop to telecom remains the durable thread connecting Mittal's early entrepreneurship to his later wealth. [1][3]
Airtel's corporate scale is not itself Mittal's personal balance sheet. The family loan that helped launch his first venture was a real starting advantage, but the wealth mechanism ultimately became the ownership value retained in Bharti businesses built over decades, rather than the face value of Airtel's revenue, assets or total enterprise value. [2][1][3]
Sources for background
Sources reviewed Sep 15, 2026.
- About Us · Bharti Enterprises
- Bharti Chairman & MD Sunil Mittal's journey · ETTelecom · Mar 25, 2016
- Sunil Mittal · Forbes · Mar 10, 2026
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