Vodafone Essar crosses 100mn subscriber base in indiaVodafone Essar India’s leading cellular services provider has announced on Tuesday that 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”. Also now vodafone Essar is 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.

“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 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. Now after attaining this milestone is second largest GSM operator in India after Bharti Airtel. Vodafone enjoy a market share of more than 23 % as Feb 2010. 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.