According to the analyst firm Wireless Intelligence, Bharti Airtel with over 250 million subscribers globally, is the world’s fourth largest operator.
Bharti Airtel has registered year-on-year growth in its subscriber numbers to move up from fifth place in 2011 to fourth place in 2012.
However, the analyst firm says that the company’s mobile revenue at $ 3.04 billion in the second quarter of the financial year 2012 is significantly lower than the other operators featuring in top five. This reflects its presence in the ultra low-cost, low-margin Indian and African markets.
Besides, Bharti Airtel, other Indian operators to feature in the top 20 list of largest mobile operators across the world include Reliance Communications (RCOM), Idea Cellular and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). RCOM and Idea Cellular occupy the eighth and fourteenth position, respectively and BSNL is the twentieth largest operator of the world.
In this year’s ranking, Idea Cellular has moved up three places while BSNL’s ranking dropped by two places.
Foreign telecom operators with subsidiaries in India such as Telenor and the Sistema Group were placed ninth and fifteenth in the world’s top 20 largest mobile operators.
