Bharti Airtel reported revenues for the fiscal third quarter to December up 9.5 percent from a year earlier to INR 202.4 billion. Mobile service revenues in India and south Asia rose 7 percent to INR 109.4 billion, and revenues in Africa were also up 7 percent, to USD 1.13 billion. Group EBITDA improved 4 percent to INR 61.8 billion, while net profit was down 72 percent to INR 2.8 billion, hurt by higher depreciation and amortisation, as well as interest, forex and tax charges. The company increased capex 12 percent from a year earlier to INR 23.8 billion, while operating cash flow was stable at INR 38 billion.
The customer base in India and south Asia contracted 2 percent compared to three months earlier to 189.4 million, hurt by the stricter customer activation regulations in India, but traffic was still up 3 percent over the period to just over 250 billion minutes. Airtel said churn in India slowed to 5.9 percent, and ARPU improved 4 percent from the previous quarter to INR 185. The number of 3G customers passed 5 million, and data traffic was up 25 percent on the September quarter.
In Africa, Airtel's customer base grew 5 percent over the three months to 61.7 million. Churn was stable at 5.1 percent, while ARPU fell 2 percent to USD 6.2.
