Self-made billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal started Bharti in 1976 as a small company manufacturing bicycle parts and built it into the fifth-largest mobile operator in the world, with more than 200 million subscribers, revenue of nearly $9 billion, and profits of $2 billion. The business model of Airtel, his telco, should have a familiar ring: Mittal has outsourced almost all aspects of Airtel, from network operations to customer support, to third parties. Only Mittal's partners aren't fellow Indian companies but Western vendors such as Ericsson, IBM, and Nokia Siemens. His next frontier: Africa. Last year he acquired Zain Africa's mobile business and is looking for ways to expand on the continent -- with a little help from his blue-chip friends.
--R.A.
NEXT: 12. Fu Chengyu
