By Yakubu LAAH InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Indian largest telecoms firm, Bharti Airtel Limited has said it’s targeting 30 million subscribers by the end of 2014 according to Segun Ogunsanya chief executive officer (CEO) of its Nigerian unit, Airtel Nigeria.

According to a report from Bloomberg, the projected 30 million customers is about 18 percent growth in Nigeria expected over the final nine months in 2014.

This is coming on the heels of regulatory bottlenecks which hampered growth early in the year, according to the company.

Ogunsanya said New Delhi-based Airtel had 25.5 million subscribers at the end of March, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Nigeria is the company’s biggest market outside India.

“I’m very very optimistic that there are no encumbrances against growth so I’m sure we’re going to reach the 30-million mark,” said Ogunsanya. “

The Airtel Nigeria CEO said despite the environment and other challenge, Airtel Nigeria is still giving relatively good service to its customers.

“We’re very bullish about Nigeria, and planning to spend about $300 million expanding Airtel’s network and services in the country this year. “We have invested so much in marketing research to see what the customers want and we are delivering on those expectations,” he said.

As earlier reported, NCC said Airtel overtook first private indigenous telecom firm, Globacom Limited to become second-largest operator in Nigeria during three (3) months through March, but behind MTN Group Limited.

NCC fined the three (3) telecom firms for not meeting quality service standards in January and subsequently banned them from selling new sim cards in March.