Bharti net climbs 49% to Rs 682 cr

Bharti Airtel today reported a growth of almost 50 per cent in quarterly profits and said it would double in the next one year the network infrastructure it had created in all its 12 years of existence.

At its results press conference today, the company said it would invest about $2 billion to double its cell sites to over 40,000 this year. Till date, Bharti has installed 20,000 sites, half of which was done in the last financial year.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman , Bharti Airtel, told reporters that Bharti would expand its mobile operations to 5,200 towns in the country before the end of this financial year, up from 3,800 towns currently.

Mittal also expressed confidence that the company would deploy 3G services (next generation services such as mobile TV) in some pockets in 2006-07, provided the government released spectrum for offering these services over the next couple of months.

India, which had just under 90 million mobile subscribers in March 2006, is rated as the fastest growing mobile market in the world, as it has been adding close to 5 million new users every month. Bharti has a 21.8 per cent share of this market, and Reliance Infocomm comes next with a 19.3 per cent share.

Bharti's quarterly profits rose 49 per cent to Rs 682 crore for the quarter ending March 2005, mainly on account of the company registering an addition of 3.4 million new subscribers, which is its highest in a quarter.

Total revenues were up 47 per cent to Rs 3,411 crore for the quarter. For the year ended March 2006, Bharti's net profits increased 51 per cent to Rs 2,258 crore, while total revenues rose 46 percent to Rs 11,663 crore.

Its mobile base rose 78 per cent year-on-year to 19.6 million at the end of March 06, while its total subscribers (including fixed-line customers) has witnessed a 77 per cent increase to 20.9 million.

In terms of subscriber growth, data from its main competitors -- CDMA-based Reliance Infocomm and state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd "� indicate that these companies have matched Bharti's growth rates.