Bharti Q1 profit up 40% to Rs 1,554.3 cr

Riding on the mobile internet boom, telecom major Bharti Airtel on Tuesday reported about 40 per cent jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 1,554.3 crore in the first quarter of the current financial year.

The company had posted net profit of Rs 1,108.5 crore in the April-June quarter of last fiscal. During the quarter ended June 30, 2015-16, it saw 86.5 per cent year-on-year traffic growth in the mobile data business.

Its consolidated total sales grew by 2.9 per cent to Rs 23,680.8 crore, as against Rs 23,005.5 crore in the first quarter of 2014-15.

“Our customer base has continued to steadily expand. Mobile minutes and data traffic have grown by 7.4 per cent and 83.4 per cent respectively,” Bharti Airtel MD and CEO (India and South Asia) Gopal Vittal said.

India revenues reported a growth of 10 per cent y-o-y basis, led by 22.2 per cent in Airtel business (B2B) and 15.8 per cent in Digital TV.

Total customer base of Bharti Airtel stood at 331.86 million at the end of the quarter under review.

The company saw decline in its Africa business, with net loss before exceptional item widening to Rs 976.8 crore in the reported quarter compared with the Rs 820 crore loss it posted last year.