Airtel reaches 300-mn subscribers mark

India’s top telecom operator Bharti Airtel has become the world’s fourth largest service provider as it crossed the 300-mn subscribers mark across its different operations, including DTH and DSL.

"This milestone underlines the strength of our operations, which is one of the largest on a global scale. It is also a tribute to the 'Airtel' brand which is trusted by customers in 20 countries, making it the largest global consumer brand out of India," Gopal Vittal, managing director and CEO (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel, said in a statement.

The telco started its operations in 1995 and reached the 200-mn mark in 2012.

The 100 mn customers have joined the Airtel family in less than two years, the company said in the statement.

"Today, telecom is at the cusp of transformation, which, going forward will be driven as much by the force of technology as by the changing demographics in emerging markets across Asia and Africa. Accelerated data consumption by the youth is going to be the underlying story," Vittal added.

Bharti Airtel is the India’s largest telecom service provider in terms of subscribers and revenue. It was the first telco to launch 4G services in 2012.

It has operations in 20 nations and in Africa it operates in 17 countries with over 70 mn customers.

Airtel's mobile networks cover over 1.85 bn people across its operations in 20 countries and carry over 311 bn minutes of calls every quarter.