Sunil Mittal Net Worth, Achievements & Personal Life

Sunil Mittal Net Worth $7 Billion

In this biography post, we are going to be discussing the story of Sunil Mittal, a successful Indian entrepreneur who founded and currently controls Bharti Enterprises, a business organization headquartered in New Delhi, India.

Bharti Enterprises, which deals in multiple industries across a range of sectors, including financial, retail, and telecom services, is the largest telecom conglomerate in India.

Mr. Sunil is also a well-known philanthropist who believes in helping the underprivileged in society and championing a good number of worthy causes.

Through the philanthropic arm of his enterprises known as the Bharti Foundation, he has been pushing toward educating the weaker sections in India and contributing to healthcare, education, and environmental causes.

Early Life: Childhood, Education

Sunil Mittal was born on 23rd October 1957 in Ludhiana, Punjab, India in an Aggarwal family. He is the son of a much-respected political figure in India named Sat Paul Mittal. Rajan Mittal and Rakesh Bharti Mittal are his brothers.

For his studies, Sunil attended the Wynberg Allen School in Mussoorie briefly before moving on to Scindia School at Gwalior. He later enrolled at Panjab University from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Science in 1976.

Professional Life: Entrepreneurial Career

Mr. Mittal was always ambitious and business-minded from a young age. He was just around the age of 19 when he started to import scraps and bicycle parts and went on to start a small-scale project to produce stainless steel sheets.

As fate would have it, Mittal moved to Mumbai to chase his business goals. In Mumbai, he started on a small scale, selling the stainless sheets he manufactures.

This experience made it clear to him that he had the talent to become a successful entrepreneur as he was good at persuading people and making sales.

In 1980, he joined forces with his brothers and started an import business which they named Bharti Overseas Trading Company.

The following year he acquired an importing license from exporting companies in Punjab. He obtained a dealership with the thriving Suzuki Motors Co. and imported thousands of their electric-powered generators from Japan. Soon his business was flourishing, and he became a millionaire.

Although he built up his business successfully and watched it grow in the direction he desired, Sunil Mittal faced a crisis when the government of India banned the import of generators in a bid to promote generator manufacturing within the country.

This left him to look for other business avenues, and he found one in 1984 when he started assembling push-button phones in India. He launched Bharti Telecom Limited from there and was soon manufacturing cordless phones, fax machines, and some other telecom gear.

The Indian government, in 1992, invited bids for mobile telephony and Sunil successfully bid for one of the four mobile phone networks licensed in the country.

He was a small timer at that time but succeeded in getting the French telecom group Vivendi to collaborate and do business with him. In 1995, he launched Bharti Cellular Limited under the brand name AirTel.

His business intelligence and direction have helped the company become very successful and highly profitable over the last couple of decades.

It became the first telecommunication company to cross the 2 million mobile subscriber mark just within a few years after it was founded.

Sunil currently controls Bharti Enterprises which deals in multiple industries across a range of sectors, including financial, retail, and telecom services. He is one of the wealthiest people in India, thanks to the success of his numerous business activities and investments.

Achievements: Awards & Honors

Mr. Mittal holds a long list of titles, awards, and accolades. These include:

• Best Asian Telecom CEO, Telecom Asia Awards, 2005
• CEO of the year, 2005–06, Business Standard
• Business Leader of the Year, Economic Times, 2005
• Padma Bhushan, Government of India, 2007
• GSM Association’s chairman’s Award, 2008
• Transforming India Leader, NDTV Business Leader Awards
• Best CEO, India, Institutional Investor, 2005
• Philanthropist of the Year Award, The Asian Awards, 2010
• INSEAD Business Leader Award, 2011
• CEO of the year, Frost and Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards, 2006
• Asia Businessman of the Year, Fortune Magazine, 2006
• Telecom Person of the Year, Voice & Data magazine (India), 2006

Moreover, he received an Honoris Causa Doctorate of Sciences (D.Sc.) Degree from Amity University Gurgaon, in 2016, and from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, J&K, in 2018. He is also an honoree of Doctor Honoris Causa, ESCP Business School, ESCP Europe, Paris (2018).

Sunil Mittal Net Worth: Salary, Income Sources, Assets

Mr. Mittal owns multiple assets in his home country of India. He has invested in many businesses ranging from real estate to construction and electronics manufacture/importation.

His net worth as a telecommunication mogul is approximately 7 billion dollars. Also a philanthropist, Mr. Mittal spends the bulk of his wealth on helping the most vulnerable people in India.

He has been a financier of causes and charities connected to education, healthcare, scholarships, talent discovery, and many more.

Despite making all these sacrifices and expenses, this Indian businessman remains among the richest people in the country and continues to strive every day to become a better person than he already is.