Country’s top telecom operator Bharti Airtel has recorded a 10.1 percent rise in its consolidated net profit to Rs 1,523 crore for the quarter ended September 30, as against Rs 1,383 crore for the corresponding period last fiscal, helped by a rising data demand.
However, there was a marginal improvement in revenues by 0.7 percent to Rs 23,852 crore during the quarter ended September 2015, as compared to Rs 23,680.8 crore in the same period last year.
Mobile services customer base rose to 32.59 crore, up 2.5 percent over the year ago period in all the geographies it operates in.
India's customer base rose by two percent Q-o-Q to 23.52 crore, 9.2 percent in South Asia (Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) and 3.2 percent in Africa division, with the total customer base rising by 2.5 percent to 34 crore during the quarter.
The operating profit (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) recorded a 0.04 percent rise on a quarter-on-quarter basis to Rs 8,265.3 crore and margin was down by 20 basis points to 34.7 percent in the same quarter.
The company said that it reported an exceptional gain of Rs 659.6 crore for quarter ended September 2015 as against Rs 1,431.4 crore in June quarter, thanks to its tower assets sale.
Meanwhile, it booked forex losses to the tune of Rs 809.4 crore during the quarter against Rs 781 crore in previous quarter.
