New Delhi: Bharti Airtel Ltd, India’s largest mobile-phone services provider, reported profit that beat analyst estimates as customers spent more time browsing the Internet, exchanging e-mail and downloading songs and photos.
Net income rose to Rs1,380 crore ($225 million) in the fiscal second quarter, from Rs512 crore a year earlier, the New Delhi-based company said on Thursday. Profit surpassed the Rs1300 crore median of 24 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Billionaire chairman Sunil Mittal’s company joins smaller competitor Idea Cellular Ltd. in posting profit that exceeded estimates as a proliferation of low-cost smartphones spurs a surge in mobile Internet access. Bharti introduced a music streaming application last month in a bid to boost data usage.
“Low-cost smartphones such as Google One devices costing under $100 should help boost data penetration,” Praveen Menon, a New York-based analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said in an e-mail before the earnings announcement. This would benefit “Indian telcos such as Bharti, especially in rural areas.”
The average price of smartphones sold in India has declined by more than $100 in the past three years to $142, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
Idea, the third-largest Indian wireless carrier, on 20 October reported better-than-estimated profit of Rs756 crore after data volume more than doubled.
Sales at Bharti increased to Rs22,850 crore in the three months ended September, from Rs21,320 crore. That compares with the Rs23,200 median of 24 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Bharti rose 0.6% to Rs407.50 at the close in Mumbai trading, before the earnings announcement. The stock has gained 23% this year, compared with a 29% increase in the benchmark S&P BSE India Sensex Index.
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