01-22-2010, 11:03 AM
Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's top mobile operator, reported a small rise in quarterly profit growth, broadly in line with expectations,India, the world's fastest-growing mobile services market, is signing up over 14 million users a month, but competition is getting fiercer as new entrants slash call rates to grab subscribers.
Global players such as NTT DoCoMo and Telenor are pushing down call rates to as low as 0.7 U.S. cents a minute as they seek a foothold in a market expected to double to 1 billion users by 2014.
New Delhi-based Bharti, in which Southeast Asia's top phone firm SingTel owns more than 30 percent, continues to focus on robust market share despite the "hyper competition" in the market, Chairman Sunil Mittal said in a statement.
Bharti said net profit rose 2 percent to 22.10 billion rupees ($478 million) under U.S. accounting rules in its fiscal third quarter ended December from 21.59 billion a year ago.
Revenue rose 1 percent to 97.72 billion rupees from 96.33 billion. A Reuters poll of 12 brokerages had forecast a fall in net profit to 20.96 billion rupees on revenue of 97.10 billion.
Bharti added 8.4 million mobile users in the quarter to reach a total of 119 million by end-December.
Global players such as NTT DoCoMo and Telenor are pushing down call rates to as low as 0.7 U.S. cents a minute as they seek a foothold in a market expected to double to 1 billion users by 2014.
New Delhi-based Bharti, in which Southeast Asia's top phone firm SingTel owns more than 30 percent, continues to focus on robust market share despite the "hyper competition" in the market, Chairman Sunil Mittal said in a statement.
Bharti said net profit rose 2 percent to 22.10 billion rupees ($478 million) under U.S. accounting rules in its fiscal third quarter ended December from 21.59 billion a year ago.
Revenue rose 1 percent to 97.72 billion rupees from 96.33 billion. A Reuters poll of 12 brokerages had forecast a fall in net profit to 20.96 billion rupees on revenue of 97.10 billion.