Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said its net profit in 2009-10 went up by 7 per cent to Rs. 9,103 crore, while its total revenue also saw a growth of 7 per cent at Rs. 39,615 crore year-on-year. The company said it was expecting early conclusion of its $9 billion deal of acquiring Zain Telecom's African assets.
However, in the fourth quarter of last fiscal ending March 31, 2010, the telecom operator saw its net profit fall by 8 per cent, a first in last three years. While its net profit stood at Rs. 2,055 crore, total revenues for the quarter were Rs. 10,056 crore, up by 2 per cent. The average revenue per user (ARPU) was Rs. 220 in the fourth quarter, 4.3 per cent down from Rs. 230 in the quarter ended December 31, 2009.
In a statement, the company's Chairman and Managing Director Sunil Mittal said: “Bharti Airtel continues to be strongly positioned in India despite a hyper competitive market. We are confident of repeating our success story in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. On March 30 (2010), we signed an agreement to acquire the operations of Zain Africa in 15 countries and are working towards a closure at the earliest. This will be a new milestone in the history of Indo-Africa relations. With this acquisition, Bharti Airtel will become world's fifth largest wireless company in terms of customer base, with operations across 18 countries and a footprint of covering 180 crore people across Asia and Africa.”
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