India's Bharti reports dive in quarterly profit

NEW DELHI:India's top mobile phone firm Bharti on Wednesday said quarterly net profit fell 41 percent because of bruising competition in its home market and costs from its new Africa operations.et profit dropped to 13.03 billion rupees ($285 million) in the three months to December from 21.95 billion rupees at the same period a year ago, the firm said.

Despite the profit fall, company founder Sunil Bharti Mittal was upbeat.Bharti continues to sustain its growth momentum across India, South Asia and Africa," he said in a statement, adding that Bharti aimed to "transform the Africa market in terms of network coverage, quality of service and affordability."

The company paid $10.7 billlion last June for the Africa business of Kuwaiti telecom operator Zain, which vaulted the group into the ranks of the world's top five wireless players by subscribers.he group results were far below analysts' forecasts of profit of around 16 billion rupees.

Revenues climbed 53 percent to 157.56 billion rupees from 103.05 billion, boosted by client additions and income from the new Africa unit.he consolidated results were not directly comparable as they included the Africa purchase, which was not on Bharti's books a year ago.

Bharti, which holds more than 20 percent of the Indian market, has been weighed down by a cut-throat price war in the world's fastest-growing mobile sector, where tariffs among the more than a dozen operators have been cut to below one US cent a minute.

Growing saturation of the Indian market and the competition on its home turf prompted Bharti to buy Zain's African operations.n India, Bharti began last month rolling out its ultra-fast third-generation (3G) telecom services, starting in the southern state of Karnataka where its customer base is the biggest.t said it will not fight a price war on 3G, declaring that the real selling point for the service will be speed, not cost.ome other telecom firms have already launched 3G.