NEW DELHI |
NEW DELHI Aug 8 (Reuters) – India’s top telecoms carrier
Bharti Airtel reported its 10th straight quarter of
profit decline as competition squeezed margins despite gaining
subscriber market share from some of its smaller rivals.
Bharti, controlled by billionaire Sunil Mittal, said
consolidated net profit fell to 7.62 billion rupees ($138
million) for its fiscal first quarter ended June from 12.15
billion rupees a year earlier.
Analysts had expected a net profit of 12.17 billion rupees,
according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Bharti dominated customer additions in the three months to
June while its smaller rivals including Telenor’s India
unit braced for a cancellation of their operating permits.
Still, the market of more than a dozen players remains
highly competitive, with most carriers in the once-booming
sector languishing in the red.
India’s Supreme Court said it would revoke all permits
awarded to eight of Bharti’s rivals such as Sistema and
Idea Cellular in a scandal-tainted 2008 sale. The
government is planning to hold a mobile airwaves auction in
November before the permits expire.
Carriers have complained that the minimum bid price is too
high, with Telenor and Sistema threatening to pull out of India
if the auction becomes too costly.
Bigger carriers such as Bharti and Vodafone’s local
unit are not affected by the court order, although they are
looking to buy more airwaves to feed their overstretched
networks in the world’s second-biggest mobile phone market.
Bharti, nearly a third owned by Southeast Asia’s top phone
carrier SingTel, operates in 20 countries across Asia
and Africa and is the world’s fifth-biggest mobile phone carrier
by subscribers.
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