Aircel Limited

Aircel Ltd. was an Indian mobile network operator headquartered in Mumbai that offered voice and 2G and 3G data services. Maxis Communications held a 74% stake and Sindya Securities and Investments held the remaining 26%.Aircel was founded by Chinnakannan Sivasankaran and commenced operations in Tamil Nadu in 1999. It was once a market leader in Tamil Nadu and had considerable presence in Odisha, Assam and North-East telecom circles. 2G and 3G Services including voice were shut down in all circles after failure of merger talks with Reliance Communications. As of December 2017, Aircel had a subscriber base of over 84.93 million and was India's sixth-largest GSM mobile service provider.[24] With presence in 22 circles, Aircel was a market leader in Tamil Nadu and had considerable presence in Odisha, Assam and North-East circles. In 2012, as a part of a major re-organization in its operations, the company scaled down its operations in five telecom circles, namely Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala and Punjab. In April 2015, Aircel relaunched its service in Kerala. Now Aircel is under the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process From 12 March 2018. Aircel was the main shirt sponsor of Indian Premier League cricket team Chennai Super Kings and I-League football team Shillong Lajong FC. Aircel was also the principal sponsor for Atlético de Kolkata FC who play in the Indian Super League football competition. It was also a major sponsor of the Chennai Open ATP tennis tournament and the Professional Golf Tour of India. Aircel also sponsored the Save the Tiger campaign for protecting India's tigers. The brand ambassadors of Aircel included the Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Tamil actor Suriya. Aircel also engaged with boxer Mary Kom, Tamil actors Dhanush and Sameera Reddy.