India's Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel has become the world's third largest mobile operator with 303 million subscribers. With operations in 20 countries, Bharti Airtel, which is present in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Africa, has "become the third largest mobile operator in the world in terms of subscribers," the company said in a statement.
Quoting latest data published by World Cellular Information Service (WCIS), it said Airtel has over 303 million mobile subscribers across its operations and has moved up one position in the global rankings.
China Mobile, according to WCIS, is the top mobile operator in the world with 626.27 million subscribers. Vodafone Group of UK ranks second with 403.08 million subscribers.
China Unicom is ranked fourth with 299.09 million subscribers, followed by America Movil with 274.14 million users.
"Airtel began operations in November 1995 in New Delhi (India) and in less than two decades it has emerged as one of the top brands in the emerging markets with an unmatched scale and diversity of operations," the statement said.
The company said it has pioneered the low-cost business model based on outsourcing that has allowed it to expand its services rapidly and give customers affordable access to mobile telephony.
