NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Bharti Airtel Ltd., India's top mobile services firm, on Friday posted a better-than-expected 37 percent rise in net profit, sending its shares up more than 6 percent to their highest in more than two months.
Cheaper call rates of as low as U.S. 1 cent a minute and network expansion to smaller towns and rural areas has seen Indian operators adding 8-9 million subscribers a month, making India the world's fastest growing mobile market.
At the end of March, India had about 260 million mobile users, data from the industry bodies showed, rising 25-fold between 2002 and 2007. The opportunity is still huge, as just 22 percent of the billion-plus population has a mobile phone.
Bharti, in which Southeast Asia's top phone firm, SingTel, owns more than 30 percent, said net profit rose to 18.53 billion rupees ($461 million) in its fiscal fourth-quarter ended March from 13.53 billion a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter rose to 78.19 billion rupees from 53.93 billion in the year-ago quarter.
A Reuters poll of 12 brokerages had forecast a net profit of 17.73 billion rupees on revenue of 75.67 billion.
"The Indian telecom story is now entering the second wave of growth, which will come from rural India," Chairman and Managing Director Sunil Mittal said in a statement.
"We see another year of strong demand in all business segments," he said, adding these would include a foray into Sri Lanka and the launch of direct-to-home satellite television.
Bharti, which had almost 62 million mobile subscribers at end-March, added 6.8 million subscribers in the March quarter and said its userbase rose 67 percent from a year earlier.
Average revenue per user fell to 357 rupees in the March quarter from 406 rupees in the previous year, although minutes of usage grew 7 percent to 507 minutes.
Bharti was one of the earliest entrants in mobile telephony when India opened up the sector in the 1990s for private players.
Most of its subscribers are on the popular GSM platform and it provides mobile services in all 23 service areas in the country.
Shares in Bharti, India's fourth-most valuable firm at about $41 billion, were up 6.5 percent at 898.80 rupees at 0450 GMT, their highest level since Feb. 7, in a Mumbai market, which was up 0.7 percent.
The shares fell 17 percent between January and March, not as sharp as a 23 percent fall in the benchmark index.
Cheaper call rates of as low as U.S. 1 cent a minute and network expansion to smaller towns and rural areas has seen Indian operators adding 8-9 million subscribers a month, making India the world's fastest growing mobile market.
At the end of March, India had about 260 million mobile users, data from the industry bodies showed, rising 25-fold between 2002 and 2007. The opportunity is still huge, as just 22 percent of the billion-plus population has a mobile phone.
Bharti, in which Southeast Asia's top phone firm, SingTel, owns more than 30 percent, said net profit rose to 18.53 billion rupees ($461 million) in its fiscal fourth-quarter ended March from 13.53 billion a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter rose to 78.19 billion rupees from 53.93 billion in the year-ago quarter.
A Reuters poll of 12 brokerages had forecast a net profit of 17.73 billion rupees on revenue of 75.67 billion.
"The Indian telecom story is now entering the second wave of growth, which will come from rural India," Chairman and Managing Director Sunil Mittal said in a statement.
"We see another year of strong demand in all business segments," he said, adding these would include a foray into Sri Lanka and the launch of direct-to-home satellite television.
Bharti, which had almost 62 million mobile subscribers at end-March, added 6.8 million subscribers in the March quarter and said its userbase rose 67 percent from a year earlier.
Average revenue per user fell to 357 rupees in the March quarter from 406 rupees in the previous year, although minutes of usage grew 7 percent to 507 minutes.
Bharti was one of the earliest entrants in mobile telephony when India opened up the sector in the 1990s for private players.
Most of its subscribers are on the popular GSM platform and it provides mobile services in all 23 service areas in the country.
Shares in Bharti, India's fourth-most valuable firm at about $41 billion, were up 6.5 percent at 898.80 rupees at 0450 GMT, their highest level since Feb. 7, in a Mumbai market, which was up 0.7 percent.
The shares fell 17 percent between January and March, not as sharp as a 23 percent fall in the benchmark index.
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