MUMBAI: Bharti Airtel, India's biggest mobile phone company, reported on Wednesday a 30-percent drop in quarterly profit, its 11th straight such fall amid rising costs and intense competition.
Net profit slid to 7.21 billion rupees ($133 million) in the second financial quarter to September, from 10.3 billion rupees in the same period a year ago.
Revenue rose 17.4 percent year-on-year to 202 billion rupees, as mobile data usage in India and telephone call traffic in Africa rose.
The profit figure undershot market expectations that Bharti would post a 7.35 billion rupees profit.
"I am pleased to see that our revenue growth has sustained through diversified segments and geographies as well as continuing healthy demand in data services," Bharti chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said.
Bharti operates in 20 countries across Asia and Africa and is the world's fourth-biggest mobile phone carrier, with 262.6 million customers.
The earnings came amid turmoil in India's telecom market after the Supreme Court this year cancelled 122 second-generation (2G) mobile licences issued in 2008 on the grounds that the distribution process was under-priced and corrupt.
The government is re-auctioning the airwaves next week for all the country's 22 telecom zones.
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