Bharti Airtel will acquire Tata Group‘s loss-making mobile telephony business, boosting its spectrum holding and raising subscriber base while saving the Tatas from the prospect of having to shut down the struggling unit. Tata will retain the non-mobile businesses, such as broadband.

“Instead of closing down the consumer mobile business, which would have entailed a much higher cost and involved letting go of employees and vendors etc, we have chosen this route,” Tata Group chief financial officer Saurabh Agrawal said.

This is Airtel’s 7th acquisition in five years, and starting November 1 the company will take over 4o million (4 crore ) customers of Tata Teleservices Ltd and Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd in 19 telecom circles or zones on “a debt-free cash-free basis.” These 19 circles “represent the bulk of India’s population and customer base,” reports News18.

Airtel may end up as a clear market leader in terms of revenue market share, even though currently, Vodafone-Idea is ahead by a sizeable margin.