From 200 million customers in 2012, India’s top telecom operator Bharti Airtel has crossed another major milestone – 300 million customers on its 2G, 3G and 4G telecom service, fixed telephone line and DSL broadband, IPTV and DTH services. Airtel had crossed its first 100 million subscribers in the year 2009 and since then the company is growing in a rapid phase on a very high competitive market.
“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. 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. I am confident that Airtel will continue to be at the forefront of this future growth story and continue to delight customers by adding value to their lives.” commented Mr. Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and CEO (India and South Asia) Bharti Airtel.
Bharti Airtel started its service in India on 1995, after getting GSM mobile service license on 1994 to operate in Delhi and NCR telecom circle, from there Bharti Airtel has been at the forefront of India’s telecom growth story. It has been a pioneer both in terms of its innovative business model that helped drive affordability of telecom services and exciting services that have set the benchmark for the industry.
- 1994—Wine licenses for G oI for GSM mcbile service in Delhi and NCR
- 1995 —Bharti Tele-venture incorporated. Launched its services under the Airtel brand name.
- 1997 —Becomes the first mobile service provider in the country to cross 100,000 customer mark.
- 1998 — Becomes first Indian company to offer telecom services in International market by launching mobile services in Seychelles.
- 2001 – Bharti and Singtel form netwok i2i, India’s first submarine cable development company
- 2002 – Bhati goes public, completes India’s first 100% book building issue
- 2002 – Becomes India’s first private telecommunication services provider to launch International Long Distance services
- 2003 – Launches first dual band network in Delhi, Punjab, Harayana free incoming calls from Airtel
- 2003 – Airtel subscribers exceed 3 million mark.
- 2008 – Bhati Airtel crosses 60 million customer mark. Launches DTH services
- 2009 – Cross the magical 100 million customer mark
- 2011 – Airtel becomes first telecom operator to launch 3G service in India
- 20011 – Launches Airtel Money
- 2011 – becomes the title sponsors for first F1 race in India
- 2012 – Launch of India’s first 4G services in Kolkata, followed by Bengaluru
- 2012 – reached 200 million customers
- 2013 – started high speed 4G LTE service on Mobile
- 2014 – reached 300 million customer base