{"id":92264,"date":"2015-07-01T20:30:17","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T18:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=92264"},"modified":"2015-07-01T17:16:43","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T15:16:43","slug":"the-biggest-mobile-networks-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/92264\/the-biggest-mobile-networks-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The biggest mobile networks in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"

India-based mobile operator, Bharti Airtel has become the third largest mobile network in the world, based on subscriber numbers.<\/p>\n

The latest data from Ovum’s World Cellular Information Service (WCIS) shows that Bharti’s 303 million subscribers puts it behind only China Mobile (626 million) and UK-based Vodafone (403 million) in terms of customers.<\/p>\n

According to Bharti chairman, Sunil Mittal, has pioneered a low-cost business model based on outsourcing, which allowed it to expand services rapidly.<\/p>\n

Ovum’s WCIS data tracks global mobile subscriptions, KPIs, financial and operational indicators, among others.<\/p>\n

These are the top 5 mobile networks, according to Ovum:<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
#<\/th>\nOperator<\/th>\nSubscribers\u00a0(millions)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nChina Mobile<\/td>\n626.7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nVodafone<\/td>\n403.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nBharti Airtel<\/td>\n303.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nChina Unicom<\/td>\n299.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nAmerica Movil<\/td>\n274.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The latest reported data from the mobile operators paints a similar picture to Ovum, though the numbers are more inflated.<\/p>\n

The numbers below are taken as reported by the operators in their latest quarterly updates.<\/p>\n

As of March 2015, the world’s biggest mobile networks look like this:<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
#<\/th>\nOperator<\/th>\nSubscribers\u00a0(millions)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nChina Mobile<\/td>\n816.3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nVodafone<\/td>\n445.8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nBharti Airtel<\/td>\n342.4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nChina Unicom<\/td>\n290.3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nAmerica Movil<\/td>\n289.7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6<\/td>\nAxiata<\/td>\n260.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nTelefonica<\/td>\n252.8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/td>\nMTN Group<\/td>\n227.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nVimpelCom<\/td>\n218.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nTelenor<\/td>\n192.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

While MTN Group may be the 8th biggest mobile operator in the world, in South Africa, the group plays second fiddle to market leader, Vodacom.<\/p>\n

Notably, both MTN and Vodacom have shown a consistent drop in market share, year on year, giving way to Cell C.<\/p>\n

At the latest reporting, this is how the country’s largest mobile operators stand in terms of subscribers:<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
#<\/th>\nOperator<\/th>\nSubscribers (millions)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nVodacom<\/td>\n32.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nMTN<\/td>\n28.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nCell C<\/td>\n21.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nTelkom (Mobile)<\/td>\n2.2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

South Africa is also home to a number of virtual mobile operators, including Virgin Mobile, Mr Price Mobile and more recently, me&you mobile and FNB Connect mobile.<\/p>\n

Virgin Mobile has avoided the issue of talking specific numbers, instead focusing on growing its user base to a landmark 1 million subscribers by 2017.<\/p>\n

The last user figures from Virgin Mobile came in 2013, pegged around 500,000 \u2013 and analysts doubt the figure has changed much since then.<\/p>\n

More on Mobile<\/h3>\n

SA mobile subscribers: Vodacom vs MTN vs Cell C vs Telkom<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

MTN and Vodacom\u2019s MTR losses are Telkom\u2019s gain<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Best and worst mobile networks in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

FNB mobile launch details, prices revealed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

India-based mobile operator, Bharti Airtel has become the third largest mobile network in the world, based on subscriber numbers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":8700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[443,26,189,28],"class_list":["post-92264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-bharti","tag-headline","tag-mobile-2","tag-mtn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92264","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=92264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92266,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92264\/revisions\/92266"}],"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=92264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}