India’s Bharti Airtel announced this morning that it has closed its acquisition of Zain’s mobile operations in 15 countries across Africa in a landmark deal worth US$10.7 billion. In an upbeat press statement, Bharti said that the deal has established it as “the first Indian brand to go truly global” with a footprint that covers over 1.8 billion people. Bharti will now be present in 18 countries across Asia and Africa with a customer base of over 180 million. Bharti revealed that the enlarged company will have combined revenues of over US$12.4 billion and EBITDA of over US$4.7 billion, based on the latest audited results. Bharti said the transaction will make it one of the five largest mobile operators in the world, a claim backed up by recent Wireless Intelligence research.

“We would like to express our deep gratitude and thank the governments of all the fifteen countries as well as the government of India for their overwhelming support to this landmark event,” commented Sunil Bharti Mittal, Bharti’s chairman and managing director. The closure of the transaction will ease earlier fears that some national regulators in Africa had opposed the deal. The 15 new African markets are Burkina Faso, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. According to Bharti’s statement, Zain is the market leader in 10 of the 15 countries and second in four countries. The total population base covered by Bharti’s new African markets is around 450 million with penetration at around 32 percent.