Bharti posts impressive figures

By Shailendra Bhatnagar






NEW DELHI  - Top mobile services provider,
Bharti

Airtel Ltd., posted a 48 percent rise in quarterly profit on Wednesday,

beating forecasts, as it expanded its network coverage in the world's fastest

growing wireless market.






India is seeing a wireless revolution as the cheapest local mobile call rates of
less than 2 U.S. cents a minute pull in more than 4 million new customers a

month -- more than the population of Ireland.






"The company has started the year well with strong operational and financial
performance. We are confident that the growth momentum will be sustained,"

Bharti Chairman

Sunil Mittal said in a statement.






Bharti plans to spend about $2 billion on expansion in the current fiscal year
to March 2007, in a move to extend its reach across the country and boost

margins.






"With economies of scale and expansion happening, we are on the right path. We
should be able to improve our margins," said Akhil Gupta, joint managing

director.






Bharti shares, which underperformed the sector sub-index in the June quarter,
were up 2.49 percent at 378.50 rupees in a firm Mumbai market at 1:07 p.m.






Bharti, India's most valuable telecoms firm worth close to $15 billion, said
consolidated profit rose to 7.55 billion rupees ($160 million) in the fiscal

first quarter to end-June from 5.1 billion a year ago.






A Reuters survey of nine analysts had predicted profit of 7.15 billion rupees.





Sales for the same period were 38.56 billion rupees and its EBITDA rose to 39
percent from 37.4 percent a year ago.






"There is smart outperformance on the profit front led by user growth," said
Deven Choksey, managing director at Mumbai-based KRC Shares & Securities.






ROOM TO GROW





New Delhi-based Bharti said it was confident of maintaining its GSM mobile
market share. The firm said earlier this month its mobile base rose 88.2 percent

to 23.07 million users.






Including fixed-line users, its total customer base grew 86.4 percent to 24.58
million.






India's mobile user base has crossed 102 million customers, more than the
combined populations of Germany and Belgium. Yet mobile penetration remains

below 11 percent in a population of more than 1 billion, leaving plenty of room

for growth.






Nearly 77 percent of mobile customers in India are on the widely prevalent
Global System for Mobile communication platform. Bharti's market share in the

GSM sector has risen to 29.4 percent at end-June from 28.3 percent in March.






Bharti, 30.8 percent-owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., added 3.49
million new GSM users in April-June against 1.27 million in the same period last

year.






Bharti competes mainly with state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., CDMA-operator
Reliance Communications Ltd., Hutchison Essar Ltd. and Idea Cellular Ltd.






Bharti's stock fell 10.4 percent in April-June, while the sector sub-index lost
8.1 percent.