India’s Bharti Airtel will become the fifth-largest telecom provider in the world by purchasing 15 African markets from Zain in deal valued at $10.7 billion, according to Wireless Intelligence. Combining the 15 new markets with the three that Bharti held prior, the purchase will give it just under 170 million subscribers out of a potential customer population of 450 million in all 18 areas. Unless a regulatory issue holds up the deal, the newly acquired markets will include: Burkina Faso, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
As I review the largest mobile providers in the world, I’m reminded that I need to spend more time looking beyond my backyard in the U.S. It would take the combined subscriber counts of the two largest carriers here — Verizon’s 91 million and AT&T’s 85 million — to rival Bharti’s new size. Perhaps Nokia’s focus on emerging markets isn’t such a bad strategy after all. This worldwide approach is rubbing off on others as Dell just announced a deal with Telfonica Group in Latin America, the world’s No. 3 three mobile provider, to provide services and smartphones such as its Android-powered Aero handset. Now if we could only get the carriers to work out better international roaming agreements so that no one ever gets another $10,000 monthly bill, we’d be in business.
Here’s a look at where Airtel will fit in among the top mobile providers in the world:
| Rank | Provider | Total Connections | Markets |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China Mobile | 525,331,266 | 2 |
| 2 | Vodafone Group | 309,580,257 | 23 |
| 3 | Telefonica Group | 202,333,430 | 20 |
| 4 | America Movil Group | 186,544,900 | 17 |
| 5 | Airtel Group | 169,468,523 | 18 |
| 6 | China Unicom | 147,587,000 | 1 |
| 7 | Deutsche Telekom Group | 127,919,986 | 12 |
| 8 | Telenor Group | 101,367,838 | 10 |
Table Source: Wireless Intelligence
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