Bharti - Airtel's Profit Soars

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The financial results of the first quarter for FY'07 of Bharti
Airtel, India's largest cellular provider showed an increase in net
profit by 48% to Rs.755 crore as compared to FY'06. The growth was
on account of increase in its customer base and expansion of
cellular phone market in the country.




The Company: Overview
Bharti, a New Delhi based company is the country's largest
telecommunication and wireless service provider, covering almost 46%
of the population. Around 30.8% of the company is owned by Singapore
telecommunications ltd. and nearly 10% by Vodafone Group Plc.

Reasons for the growth
Growth could be attributed to mainly 3 reasons.
Firstly, a strong growth in the Indian mobile market with cheapest
local mobile calling rates has attracted 4million new users. The GSM
market constitutes about 75% of Airtel's revenue. Owing to the
expanding markets, firm's sale was up by 53%. The mobile base of the
firm rose by 88.2% earlier this month and wireless services
accounted for the 74% of the quarter sales. The total customer base
grew by 86%, which included fixed line users.
Secondly, with lowering of entry barriers through lifetime pre-paids
and reduced handset prices, there has been a decline in monthly
mobile average revenue per Airtel user, which also has triggered the
growth.
Thirdly, the firm has a strong network cover reaching 4026 towns and
101614 villages with more than 100 million subscribers to its
services. The company plans to invest around $2million by March to
cover 5200 towns and thousands of villages across the country all
over.

Company's analysis
Bharti Airtel has been ranked among the top 10 best performing
companies in the world by business week in its IT100 list.
Currently, Bharti's shares have been trading at 373.30 on the BSE
and have a 3.8 percent weighing in the BSE-30 share index. The co's
CMD is confident that with a strong operational performance in the
beginning of the year and new management structure, it will be able
to sustain the growth and improve.
surabhi