Airtel hits 650 million users, becomes world’s No. 2 telecom operator

Bharti Airtel Thursday said it now has 650 million customers across, a milestone that places the telecom operator as the second largest globally by customer base, with operations spread across India and Africa, citing data from GSMA Intelligence.

The Sunil Mittal-led telco has over 368 million mobile customers in India, which includes 13 million homes powered by fixed broadband and 15 million users on its Digital TV offering. In Africa, the company’s Airtel Africa subsidiary has a base of 179 million customers across 14 countries in the continent offering high-speed data, integrated voice, and mobile money services, which has over 52 million customers.

In India, Airtel remains second to Reliance Jio, which said it crossed 500 million customers last year. Jio has subscribers only in India. Globally, telecom subscriber rankings are primarily dominated by Chinese telecom operators. China Mobile currently dominates with over 1 billion mobile subscribers on its network. Airtel has now become the second-largest.


“Achieving the milestone of 650 million customers to be the second largest operator globally is a great responsibility for us to serve our customers better every day,” said Gopal VIttal, Executive Vice Chairman, Bharti Airtel.

Vittal said the telecom operator will strive to raise the bar on innovation, reliability to elevate customer experience further. The company was first to launch 5G services in India.

According to a report by Kotak Equities, Bharti’s subscriber base is growing at a compounded growth rate of 2.9% over FY21-26, with a 9.7% compounded growth in data subscribers, indicating a faster growth in high-value customers.

“We see significant growth headroom with an underpenetrated rural/mobile broadband market and around 20% of its subscribers still on 2G/3G,” the brokerage said in a report Thursday.

According to data from TRAI, Airtel’s subscriber market share rose to 37.59% in February 2026, up from 37.4% in the previous month. This growth was driven by its industry-leading addition of 4.86 million mobile subscribers in February alone, significantly outpacing Reliance Jio’s 1.62 million additions.