New Delhi: Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Wednesday reported over two-fold jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs 1,436.50 crore for the three months ended December 2014 on the back of increased mobile data revenue.
Airtel had posted a net profit of Rs 610.2 crore in the same period a year ago.
The Rs 1,436.50-crore profit is the biggest for the third quarter in the last four years, the company said.
The total revenue grew by 5.8 percent to Rs 23,228.1 crore in the reported quarter compared to Rs 21,960.7 crore in the same period last fiscal.
Consolidated mobile data revenues increased by about 62 percent at Rs 2,872 on yearly basis on higher data usage. Mobile data revenues now contribute more than 85 percent of the incremental revenues of Airtel.
India revenue grew by 13 percent on yearly basis to Rs 16,256.4 crore October-December 2014 period from Rs 14,443 crore in the comparable period last fiscal.
"We remain focused on driving topline through stepped up customer acquisitions with continued focus on churn, ensuring pricing stability, and path-breaking innovations in mobile data. Our mobile data growth is at 74.3 percent in third quarter," Bharti Airtel MD and CEO for India and South Asia Gopal Vittal said in a statement.
Mobile data revenues jumped by 74.3 percent to Rs 2,114 crore on yearly basis contributing to 16.2 percent of mobile India revenues, the company said.
The subscribers base of Airtel at the end of December 2014 stood at around 22 crore including about 4.2 crore mobile user in India. The average revenue from data services per user increased by 25 percent to Rs 170 from Rs 137 a year ago.
India revenues included 13 percent growth in Mobile, 13.2 percent in Telemedia and 15.8 percent in Digital TV.
The company saw increase in revenue realisation from mobile phone calls service as well in India to 37.67 paise per minute, up by 0.45 paise on year-on-year basis.
The company's loss in Africa widened to Rs 835.9 crore, excluding impact of exceptional items, in the reported quarter. The net income of Airtel Africa was Rs 580 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal.
Africa revenues of Bharti Airtel declined by 5.5 percent in rupee terms at Rs 6,827.6 crore during the reported period compared to Rs 7,229.8 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago. The company, however, said that the revenues were up 3.9 percent in local currency terms.
Data revenues stood at USD 116 million in Africa with growth of 34.9 percent Y-o-Y, led by increase in data customer base by 38.1 percent and higher usage per customer by 22.6 percent.
"We have maintained our focus on growing customer base and topline in a cost-efficient manner. Significant depreciation in most African currencies especially the Nigerian Naira has however depressed the reported results in dollar terms," Bharti Airtel Africa MD and CEO Christian de Faria said.
Overall customer base of the company stood at 31.29 crore across 20 countries at the end of reported quarter.
The net debt of the the company at the end of reported quarter stood at Rs 66,838.8 crore.
Shares of Bharti Airtel closed at Rs 367.85, down by 1.08 percent compared to previous close, at BSE on Wednesday.
