Bharti and S.Africa's MTN in merger talks

India's Bharti Airtel and South Africa's MTN are planning a USD 61 billion merger. The new telecoms giant would span Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The previous attempt at merger failed a year ago.
The merger would create the world's third biggest cell phone group by subscribers through the combination of India's biggest operator and MTN, which runs networks across 21 markets in Africa and the Middle East.
The largest mobile operators are China Mobile and Vodafone. The combined entity would have 200 million users with annual sales of USD 20 million.
The companies have said discussions were at an early stage and the firms had set an exclusivity deadline of July 31.

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