INDIA’S top mobile phone firm Bharti Airtel reported
Wednesday its quarterly profit leapt by 115 percent, the first rise in four
years, boosted by surging data use and easing of cut-throat price wars.Bharti, the fourth-largest telecom firm globally,
said net profit for the third financial quarter to December climbed to 6.1
billion rupees ($98 million) from 2.84 billion rupees in the same period a year
earlier.
The company’s focus on Internet operations “has
increased adoption and usage” of Bharti, said Indian chief executive Gopal
Vittal.
“Data is now a huge source of revenue,” Vittal added.
Data services have become the new battleground for
Indian telecom companies as they seek to boost revenues in an increasingly
saturated domestic mobile market.
Bharti, controlled by billionaire founder-chairman
Sunil Bharti Mittal, had clocked 15 straight quarters of profit decline before
Wednesday’s rise.
Despite the better performance, the figures still
undershot market expectations of a 10-billion rupee profit for the three-month
period.
Shares were up just 0.13 percent at 306.55 rupees in
early afternoon trade.
But analysts said the quarter was positive overall.
“Competitive intensity is declining in India thanks
to (the) fruits of consolidation and the data numbers give quite a bit to be
excited about,” telecom analyst Harit Shah at Mumbai’s Nirmal Securities told
AFP.
The Indian firm, with 287 million customers and
operations in both Africa and Asia, said Internet revenues soared 105 percent
year-on-year to 17.36 billion rupees.
Total revenues climbed 13.3 percent in the third
quarter to 219.4 billion rupees from 193.6 billion rupees a year ago.
Average revenue per user, a key industry
profitability benchmark, jumped five percent in India.
Bharti operates in 20 countries and is nearly
one-third held by Singapore’s SingTel.
India’s telecom sector was a market star before
fierce tariff competition pushed call rates down to among the world’s lowest.
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