Bharti Airtel Becomes First Company To Cross The 200 Million Mobile User Mark

Bharti Airtel had a great start for the new year with few important achievements. The telecom company rolled out 4G  service to mobile phone users in Banaglore. Earlier this week, the telecom service provider acquired Loop mobile for Rs 700 Crore. Under the new agreement, Loop Mobile’s 3 million subscribers in Mumbai will join Airtel’s over 4 million subscribers bringin Airtels total subscriber base in Mumbai to 7 million.

Now, Airtel has announced that it has crossed the 200 million mobile subscriber mark in India. It is also the first one to cross the 200 million mobile user mark. Airtel is the largest telecom operator in India, both in terms of customers and revenues. The operator added 100 million users in less than 5 years. Prior to this, it had crossed the 100 million mark in 2009. The company, which started in 1995, is the world’s fourth largest telecom company by subscribers with operations in 20 countries.

Gopal Vittal, Joint MD & CEO (India), Bharti Airtel said in a statement, “We are delighted to have reached this major milestone. It is gratifying to see the trust our customers have reposed in our brand and it will be our endeavor to continue delighting them with innovative and world-class services. We will also continue to invest towards building a robust data network of the future and be at the forefront of India’s mobile broadband revolution”.

The leading global telecommunications company further revealed that its distribution channel is spread across 1.5 million outlets, with network presence in 5,121 census and 460,655 non-census towns and villages in India covering approximately 86.7 percent of the country’s population. Airtel has the largest rural mobile customer base in India with over 88 million mobile customers (from rural markets).

Bharti Airtel, with around 29% market share, was ahead of Vodafone Services India Pvt. Ltd, which had 162.18 million mobile subscribers (23% share) and Idea Cellular that had 130.2 million subscribers (18.5% share), at the end of January, according to data from the Cellular Operators Association of India, a lobby group.