Bharti Airtel’s Q4 and year 2009 financial results disclosure show a reduction in manpower from 24,538 in March 2009 to 18,354 by the end of March, 2010.

The company said that the reduction was as a result of a managed services deal for the Telemedia Services signed with Alcatel-Lucent.

The headcount at the company’s Telemedia business unit dropped from 10,022 in March, 2009 to 3,921 by March, 2010.

“We will continue to explore opportunities for outsourcing functions which we feel can be handled more efficiently by outside agencies as we focus on our core strength of offering services,” said Sanjay Kapoor, CEO, Bharti Airtel.

The Mobile services business unit of the company however reported a increase in headcount from 7,832 to 7,969 in a year. Employee strength in the Enterprise unit was down from 3,646 in March 2009 to 3,094 in March, 2010.