Global mobile telco Bharti Airtel announced it crossed the 300 million-customer mark across its entire operations on Monday. The milestone includes subscribers across fixed line and DSL, mobile and DTH services.
Bharti Airtel, whose operations are in 20 countries across Africa and Asia, started its operations in 1995 and reached the 100 million customers mark in 2009. The company crossed the 200 millionth mark in 2012. The additional 100 million subscribers have joined the Airtel family in just less than two years.
“This milestone emphasizes the strength of our operations, which is among the biggest globally. Additionally, it is a tribute to the ‘Airtel’ brand trusted by clients in 20 countries. Today, telecom is at the turning point of transformation, which, going forward will be driven as much by the force of technology as by the changing demographics in emerging markets across Africa and Asia,” said Christian de Faria, CEO of Airtel Africa.
“Accelerated data consumption by the youth is going to be the underlying story. I am confident that Airtel will continue to be at the forefront of this future growth story and continue to delight customers by adding value to their lives.”
Currently, Airtel ranks as the fourth largest mobile service provider worldwide and the second largest outside China. It is the largest mobile telco in Africa in terms of geographical footprint that spans 17 countries and more than 70 million customers.
Airtel’s mobile networks cover more than 1.85 billion people and carry more than 311 billion minutes of calls quarterly.