Unavailability of smartphones during lockdown hampered 4G growth: Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel chief executive Gopal Vittal said that a slowdown in its 4G net subscriber addition in the quarter was due to the supply shock to smartphones in the market.

Due to the nationwide lockdown, handset players couldn’t sell devices through both offline and online channels and lost sales for an entire month.

Due to the nationwide lockdown, supply chains were disrupted, leading to a sharp drop in smartphone shipments and in turn impacting the pace of 2G to 4G upgrade, Vittal said.