Developing world operators led the big climbers in GSMA Intelligence’s 2015 operator rankings, with America Movil, China Telecom and Bharti Airtel all moving up in the top ten.

In contrast, European-based groups lost out, with Orange and VimpelCom both slipping out of the top ranks. This reflects the competitive environment in this region, “comprising largely saturated markets with little or indeed negative revenue growth”.

The study ranked operators using a model based on both mobile connections (including M2M) and mobile revenue.  China Mobile was “comfortably” the largest player by both measures.

With China Unicom and China Telecom also in the top ten, other positions were mainly filled by groups with “substantial global footprints” and/or a strong presence in the US, including Vodafone, Telefonica, AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Deutsche Telekom.

Although not yet a top 30 player, Altice was the biggest gainer, climbing 58 places to number 34 following its acquisition of SFR.

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