Vodafone rings in 100 mn subscribers in India

Vodafone Essar on Thursday said it has crossed the 100-million subscriber mark in India, becoming the third mobile operator in the country to do so after rivals Bharti Airtel and Reliance communications.

With this, Vodafone Essar becomes the world's fifth mobile operator with 100 million customers in a single country after China Mobile and China Unicom along with the other two domestic rivals.

Vodafone Essar has also increased its market share, strengthening its position as India's second largest operator in terms of revenue, the company said in a statement.

"This is a significant achievement for us and reflects the trust customers have bestowed on the company. In the past three years, we have invested over Rs 20,000 crore (Rs 200 billion) to expand our operations to service customers in India," Vodafone Essar managing director and CEO Marten Pieters said.

Starting with about 28 million subscribers across 16 circles in May 2007, Vodafone Essar has 100 million customers and has extended its footprint to all the 23 circles in the country.

"In addition to voice and text, Vodafone will also work on investing in platforms that will enable the delivery of Internet and data services to a large part of the country. Vodafone will also continue to increase investments in new business areas like enterprise and carriers business," Pieters said.

Vodafone Essar is the Indian subsidiary of Vodafone Group and had commenced operations in 1994, when its predecessor Hutchison Telecom acquired the cellular license for Mumbai.

According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Vodafone Essar had 97.22 million subscribers at the end of February 2010 from 94.14 million in the previous month.