Telenor crosses 200 million cell subscribers, 24% come from India

Norwegian telecom firm Telenor on Thursday said it has crossed 200 million mobile subscriber mark across 13 international markets with India contributing over 24% to the total base.

The 160-year-old Norwegian company started mobile services in 1981 with Nordic Mobile Technology (NMT), the first generation mobile services (1G), in Norway.

"Today, Telenor is in the hands of more than 200 million people from Malaysia to Norway," the company said in a statement.

Among Telenor's business units, India contributes over 24% of its total customer base.

Telenor launched mobile services here in 2009, and is commercially available in six circles (out of 22 telecom circles) covering 50% of India's population, the statement said. It has 48.72 million customers in India.

"We at Telenor India are proud to be the leading contributor of subscriber growth adding over 5 million customers in the last 11 months," Telenor India CEO Sharad Mehrotra said.

Telenor Group is present in 13 markets across Asia and Europe.