February 13, 2008

India's Bharti Airtel says has 60 million users

MUMBAI, Feb 13 (Reuters) - India's top mobile services firm, Bharti Airtel Ltd (BRTI.BO: Quote, Profile, Research), said on Wednesday its number of users had reached 60 million, including fixed-line and broadband.

"This is a major milestone in our journey towards the 100 million customers mark and gives the company a truly global scale," President and CEO Manoj Kohli said in a statement.

India's mobile market is the world's fastest growing that has been adding about eight million users a month, thanks to call rates as low as one U.S. cent a minute, the availability of cheap handsets and expansion of networks to smaller towns.

The outlook remains robust because only about a quarter of India's more than 1.1 billion people has a phone, and the government has a target of 500 million phones by 2020.

Shares in Bharti Airtel ended 0.2 percent higher at 857.7 rupees in a Mumbai market that rose 2 percent. (Reporting by Hiral Vora; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)

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