Bharti Airtel, India's leading telecommunication service provider, has been ranked fourth largest operator in the world in terms of subscribers in the latest Wireless Intelligence 'Scoreboard' operator ranking.
According to the Wireless Intelligence 'Scoreboard' report, Bharti Airtel has 250 million mobile subscribers across its operations by the end of June 2012. Bharti Airtel took over Telefonica Group with a growth of 13 percent over the year.
Accoring to the report, India's Bharti Airtel (#4) was the only other member of the top ten to move up the ranking, recording a 13 percent year-on-year rise in connections (to 250 million) and leapfrogging Telefónica to become the world's fourth-largest operator group in Q2.
Airtel was one of the few in the top ten to move to higher ranking. However, the report also cited that the revenue of the Airtel in the second quarter of 2012 was comparatively lower than the other four telecommunication operators which stood in the top five positions.
"However, Bharti's US$3.04 billion in mobile revenue in Q2 2012 is significantly lower than the four other operators in the top five, reflecting Bharti's presence in the ultra low-cost, low-margin Indian and African markets," said the report.
The first position has been occupied by the China Mobile with 683.08 million connections and is followed by Vodafone Group with 386.88 million connections, America Movil Group with 251.83 million connections, Bharti Airtel with 250.04 million connections and Telefonica Group with 243.51 million connections. Airtel functions in 20 countries across South Asia, Africa and the Channel Islands.
Other than Airtel, three operators from India namely Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular and state-run BSNL found a place in the top 20 list.
Reliance Communications is in the eighth position with 154.60 subscribers, Idea Cellular is in the fourteenth spot with 117.16 subscribers and BSNL is in the twentieth position with 98.28 million subscribers respectively. Bharti
