Bharti Airtel posts 10th quarter of profit decline

Reuters: India;s top telecoms carrier Bharti Airtel reported its 10th straight quarter of profit decline as competition squeezed margins despite gaining a bigger subscriber share, sending its stock to the lowest level in more than two months.

Bharti dominated customer additions in the three months to June as its smaller rivals including Telenor’s India unit braced for a cancellation of their operating permits. Still, all was not smooth sailing for the carrier nearly a third owned by Southeast Asia’s top phone carrier SingTel as the market remained highly competitive.

Bharti, controlled by billionaire Sunil Mittal, said consolidated net profit fell 37 per cent to 7.62 billion rupees for its fiscal first quarter ended June from a year earlier, missing analyst estimates.

“Telecom revenues in India have been depressed due to hyper-competition and recent regulatory and tax developments,” Mittal, who is Bharti’s Chairman, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Overall revenue rose 14 per cent in the quarter ended June to 193.5 billion rupees, also missing estimates.

Analysts had expected Bharti, which operates in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, to post a net profit of 12.17 billion rupees on revenue of 195.79 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.