Seventh straight quarterly drop but firm says growth, prospects look good; margins expected to look up.
The rollout of 3G (third generation) services resulted in a higher amortisation cost of Rs 164 crore, besides increase in interest cost to Rs 115 crore. The loss on forex fluctuations was Rs 239 crore.
For the September quarter last year, the net profit was Rs 1,661 crore. Revenue, however, increased 13 per cent to Rs 17,270 crore during this July-September quarter, against Rs 15,231 crore in the same quarter last year.
Bharti, which last year acquired Zain’s African operations in 15 countries, continued to post losses on these. The loss was Rs 426 crore for the September quarter against Rs 378 crore in the same quarter last year. Revenue for the African region is, however, higher, having increased to Rs 4,703 crore, from Rs 3,890 crore in the same quarter last year.
Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) for Africa operations improved to 26.4 per cent, from 22.9 per cent a year before. For India and South Asia, the margins were 36.1 per cent, from 33.7 per cent in the same period last year.
Most of the losses in Africa were due to forex fluctuations, said Manoj Kohli, CEO for international operations. He said he was confident of meeting the target of $5 billion in revenue and $2 billion in operating profit by the financial year ending March 2013. "We are making good progress. We are actually more confident," he said.
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For India, average revenue per user (Arpu) fell nine per cent year-on-year to Rs 183 during the quarter, while African Arpu was down one per cent to Rs 358.7. The average minutes of use per user also fell by seven per cent, to 423, for Indian operations. For Africa, average minutes of use increased 14 per cent to 128.
Non-voice revenue contributed 14.5 per cent to Indian operations, while it contributed 8.5 per cent to the African business. The company is banking on its 3G mobile services in both continents.
The company had recently raised its mobile rates after a gap of almost two years, which is expected to improve margins in the coming quarters.
Apart from the telecom circles where it won 3G spectrum in last year’s auction, it has licences to offer 3G services in 12 countries in Africa.
"India (meaning, its India business) has achieved double-digit growth, fuelled by the non-voice businesses. The arrest of continuously declining prices in India augurs well for the telecom industry," chairman Sunil Mittal said in a statement. "Africa has notched strong revenue growth of 23 per cent. The company has launched 3G services in Congo-B and Airtel Money in Zambia and Kenya. We continue to expand our footprint across Africa, with our recent acquisition of 2G and 3G licences in Rwanda.”
The company has a total subscriber base of 237 million across 19 countries.
The stock closed 1.4 per cent up, at Rs 397.95.
“Overall, the results were along expected lines. The full impact of rate hikes taken by Bharti in India will flow from the third quarter of this fiscal, which will aid its average revenue per minute and overall revenues. Also, Bharti has been consistently adding about two million subscribers per quarter in its Africa business, leading to increase in minutes of usage. We remain positive on Bharti,” a research analyst from Angel Broking said.
The company has seven million 3G customers in India, with a quarter of these using services regularly, he said. Bharti will launch its wireless broadband services using LTE technology in the current financial year. The company has finalised vendors for the rollout of these services and is in the process of signing agreements, he said, declining to share the names of the vendors.