{"id":64081,"date":"2014-07-28T12:59:52","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T10:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=64081"},"modified":"2014-07-28T13:00:25","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T11:00:25","slug":"worlds-largest-mobile-networks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/64081\/worlds-largest-mobile-networks\/","title":{"rendered":"World’s largest mobile networks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indian telecoms giant, Bharti Airtel has passed the 300 million customer mark, the group reported on Monday (28 July).<\/p>\n

The landmark comes only two years after the group hits the 200 million mark in 2012, following the 100 million mark in 2009.<\/p>\n

The company provides telecommunications services in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, with 17 of those countries found on the latter continent, covering 70 million customers.<\/p>\n

This makes Bharti Airtel one of the largest telecoms providers in the world.<\/p>\n

However, looking at mobile-only figures – at 208 million subscribers – it still ranks below its international competitors, including South Africa’s MTN group.<\/p>\n

Global mobile leaders<\/h3>\n

The title of world’s biggest mobile operator still belongs to China Mobile, which as of its latest reporting, serves almost 800 million customers.<\/p>\n

The Chinese giant far outstrips any other telecoms operator, with the UK’s Vodafone Group – parent to South Africa’s Vodacom – coming the closest with over 434 million customers across the 21 countries it operates in.<\/p>\n

Africa’s mobile success story, MTN, operates in over 20 countries across the African continent and carried over 210 million subscribers on its network.<\/p>\n

Top 15 Mobile operators by total mobile subscribers<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
#<\/strong><\/td>\nOperator<\/strong><\/td>\nTotal subscribers (latest reporting)
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nChina Mobile<\/td>\n790 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nVodafone Group<\/td>\n434 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nAmerica Movil<\/td>\n343 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nTelefonica<\/td>\n323 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nChina Unicom<\/td>\n284 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6<\/td>\nOrange<\/td>\n239 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nVimplecom<\/td>\n218 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/td>\nMTN Group<\/td>\n210 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nBharti Airtel<\/td>\n208 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nChina Telecom<\/td>\n186 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
11<\/td>\nDeutsche Telekom<\/td>\n145 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
12<\/td>\nEtisalat<\/td>\n145 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
13<\/td>\nAT&T<\/td>\n116 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
14<\/td>\nVerizon<\/td>\n105 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
15<\/td>\nTelecom Italia<\/td>\n105 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

In South Africa, Vodacom remains the largest network operator on the country with 32.5 million subscribers, while it has 59.6 million in total as it operators in several other African countries.<\/p>\n

In April, MTN reported that its South African operation reduced subscriber numbers by 824,768, bringing total subscribers to 24.9 million for the period ended March 2014.<\/p>\n

Cell C revealed on Friday (28 July) that it has added 1.5 million subscribers to its network, carrying a total of 18.1 million.<\/p>\n

Telkom\u2019s mobile business has 1.8 million subscribers, as reported in June.<\/p>\n

\"BMI<\/a>

BMI Subscriber numbers<\/p><\/div>\n

More on subscribers<\/h3>\n

Cell C reveals new subscriber numbers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

We are under pressure in SA: MTN<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Vodacom revenue hit by MTRs<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bharti Airtel has passed 300 million total customers – and with over 200 million mobile subscribers is one of the largest mobile operators in the world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":8700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1660,26,28,27,737],"class_list":["post-64081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-bharti-airtel","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-vodacom","tag-vodafone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64081"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64091,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64081\/revisions\/64091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}