Ovum's ranking of global mobile carriers
Ovum’s ranking of global mobile carriers

T-Mobile CEO John Legere likes to talk about the wireless battle happening here in the U.S., as Verizon and AT&T tower over the industry and hold customers captive, as he sees it. But a new global ranking of wireless carriers, from research firm Ovum, puts in perspective just how insignificant the “big two” — and the entire U.S. market — really are in the grand scheme of things.

China Mobile sits at the top of the list by subscriber count, with a whopping 633 million users, Vodafone comes in at No. 2 with 408 million and Bharti Airtel at No. 3 with 314 million.

Verizon, which leads the U.S. market with a commanding market share hovering above 30 percent, sits way down at No. 13 with fewer than 150 million subscribers and AT&T at No. 15. Don’t even bother looking for T-Mobile or Sprint — they didn’t make the list.

[Update: T-Mobile US is included as a portion of Deutsche Telekom’s market share but isn’t large enough to make the list on its own.]

Strategy Analytics market share data for the U.S. wireless industry
Strategy Analytics market share data for the U.S. wireless industry

By Ovum’s count, you could combine all four of the major U.S. wireless companies into one super carrier, and it would still be competing for the No. 3 spot on the list. It would have barely over half of China Mobile’s user base.

Of course, a lot of this is simply a numbers game, and the result of global population patterns. Each of the top four wireless carriers in the world make most of their money in China’s 1.36-billion-person market. Even if a super carrier could sign up everyone in North America, it still wouldn’t stand a chance.

The numbers make it pretty clear the world’s first cellphone call may have been placed on New York City’s 6th Avenue, but the real battle for wireless industry supremacy is now happening elsewhere.

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