The Hindu Business Line : Bharti Q3 net rises 25% on record subscriber additions

Growing numbers: Mr Akhil Gupta (right), Deputy Group CEO of Bharti Enterprises, and Mr Manoj Kohli, President & CEO, Bharti Airtel Ltd, at a press conference in the Capital on Thursday. - Kamal Narang

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Jan. 22 Riding on a record number of subscriber additions Bharti Airtel Ltd on Thursday announced a 25 per cent increase in its net profit to Rs 2,159 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2008 compared with Rs 1,722 crore in the same period last year.

The consolidated total revenues for the quarter grew by 38 per cent to Rs 9,633 crore compared with Rs 6,964 crore last year.

Bharti got close to 10 million new subscribers during the October-December quarter taking its total user base to 88.3 million as on December 31, 2008. Bharti had 79.9 million users at the end of September,2008 and 57.3 million subscribers at the end of December 2007.

Commenting on the results and performance, Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman & Managing Director, Bharti Airtel Ltd, said “Bharti Airtel continues to lead the telecom growth story adding customer and revenue market share despite intense competition. Bharti’s strategy of extensive roll out ahead of competition, especially in new villages, has yielded rich dividends. Our launch in Sri Lanka has received a huge response and despite coming in as the fifth operator we hope to be in a leadership position in the coming years.”

The company is planning a capital investment of around $3 billion for the next financial year. Bharti’s share price increased 6.19 per cent to Rs 619.7 on the BSE on Thursday.

Mobile services accounted for 82 per cent of the revenues during the quarter under review. Average Revenue Per User has declined by 9 per cent to Rs 324 from Rs 358 in the same period last year. Average Minutes of Usage per subscriber has, however, increased by 7 per cent to 505 compared with 474 minutes last year. The minutes of traffic was 526 in the previous quarter of 2008. Non-voice revenue has increased marginally to 9.5 per cent of the total income from mobile services.

On the network side, Airtel now covers 4 lakh villages, 5,057 census towns through 88,319 towers. It also has an optic fibre network of 90,205 route km (67,136 km).

Related Stories:
Airtel launches IPTV service
Bharti’s Q2 profit up 27%

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page