Bharti mobile user base tops 40 mn

India's top mobile services firm, Bharti Airtel Ltd, said on Wednesday its cellular user base crossed 40 million, making it the 10 th company in the world to achieve the milestone in a single country.

India is the world's fastest-growing mobile market, adding more than six million new users every month lured by call rates as low as US 1 cent a minute. The country had 166.05 million wireless subscribers at the end of March.

Analysts and industry experts expect the mobile user base to triple in the next five years as only 15 per cent of India's 1.1 billion population own a mobile phone, compared with 36 per cent in China.

Bharti, managed by billionaire Sunil Mittal, had 38.9 million mobile subscribers at the end of April, according to data provided by Cellular Operators' Association of India, an industry body representing GSM carriers.

One of the earliest entrants to the sector after it was opened for private players Bharti took 11 years to reach 20 million subscribers in 2006 but just another 13 months to double the figure, the company said.

Bharti, which provides mobile services in all the 23 zones or circles that make up India's telecom market, said its share of the wireless user base increased to 23.2 per cent from 20.4 per cent it had stated at end-March.

Bharti, in which Southeast Asia's top phone firm SingTel owns a 30.8 per cent stake, competes with 11 other players in India's fragmented mobile market.

Reliance Communications is India's second-largest mobile services firm, followed by unlisted state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.

Britain's Vodafone Plc earlier this year bought a controlling stake in India's No 4 mobile firm Hutchison Essar.

Ahead of the announcement, shares in Bharti, valued at $40.3 billion; closed 1.2 per cent down at Rs 849.20 in a Mumbai market that slid 0.63 per cent.