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Very soon in the future, Bharti Airtel is expected to become the first ever cellular network operator in India to have a base of 100 million subscribers, nationwide. By the end of March 2009, the operator boasted of an overall subscriber base of 96.6 million. After a month i.e. as April has come to an end, the number of subscribers is expected to increase to somewhere around 99 million. Keeping this in mind, it can be anticipated that Bharti will reach the 100m mark within a few weeks only.
In the year 2008-09, Bharti added 32.5 million subscribers to its base, making the monthly average to be around 2.7 million subscribers. The company also created a record of sorts in January-March quarter, when the number of new subscribers went as high as 8.37 million. Now, it is expected that by the middle of May, the overall subscriber base of Bharti Airtel will be 100 million and the operator will cross even that mark by May-end/early June.
On being contacted, Manoj Kohli, CEO & Joint MD of Airtel, admitted the fact that Bharti will breach the 100-million subscriber mark latest by early June. With this, there will be an Airtel subscription with nearly one out of every 13 Indians. This will also have a positive effect on the global ranking of the cellular operator. It will, most probably, rank in the top five cellular operator's in the world, with every possibility of becoming the world's second or third largest operator by 2012.
