Bharti Infratel reported 71% on-year increase in net profit in the quarter ended June 30, 2016, at Rs 756 crore, against Rs 442 crore in the year-ago period, as Indian telecom operators expanded their 3G and 4G coverage, which resulted in more rented cell sites.
India's only listed telecom tower firm said its consolidated revenue in the quarter grew 7% on-year at Rs 3,211 crore, while consolidated Ebitda improved to Rs 1,408 crore, reflecting a 9% on-year rise. The company's consolidated Ebit stood at Rs 830 crore, up 11% year-on-year.
Bharti Infratel, which is a unit of India's leading telco Bharti Airtel, reported 20% on-year increase in operating free cash flows at Rs 958 crore in the first quarter.
During the quarter, the company said that it has taken approval of shareholders on the buyback of its equity shares for an issue size of Rs 2,000 crore and is in the midst of completing the buyback process.
“Indian Telecom industry is going through consolidation; we believe this would be good for the industry in the long run as the sector would require large investments by the operators in future to cater to the ever increasing data demand. We are also seeing some early signs of implementation of the government’s initiative on Smart City, which we believe would provide opportunities to infrastructure companies like ours. Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers being the leaders are fully geared to serve our customers’ demand and to look at the new opportunities coming up on the infrastructure front,” Akhil Gupta, Chairman, Bharti Infratel Limited, said in a statement.
Bharti Infratel ended the first quarter with 89,352 towers with an average sharing factor of 2.20. From the first quarter to this year's first quarter, the company added 2,956 new towers in the country.
The company has a total of 196,401 towers on a shared basis, up 11,186 on a yearly basis.
