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Striving to retain the lead position in the mobile industry, Bharti Airtel will invest a massive $8 billion by 2010 for a 25 per cent market share.

"By 2010, estimates are that India will have 400-500 million subscribers. Bharti strives to retain up to 125 million or 25 per cent of the market," group chairman Sunil Mittal said. The expansion programme assumes importance in the wake of imminent entry of global mobile leader Vodafone through acquisition of Hutch-Essar. After the Vodafone announcement, Mittal had said Bharti would continue to be the numero uno in India.

The company, since its inception, has planned an investment of about $8 billion (about Rs 36,000 crore) for various services, including mobile, basic, national and international long-distance, undersea cable and broadband services.

"We are spending nearly $2 billion every year as the future (in terms of creation of infrastructure) continues to be stronger than the past... by 2010, we would have doubled the investment, Mittal said.