Bharti Airtel net profit rises 30.5% in Q4, lags forecast

Mobile carrier Bharti Airtel reported a 30.5 per cent rise in quarterly net profit, helped by strong subscriber growth for its mobile data services, although the rise was smaller than expected.

Bharti Airtel, which operates in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, said on Tuesday net profit rose to Rs 1,255 crore for its fiscal fourth quarter to March 31, from Rs 962 crore a year earlier.

Analysts, on average, had expected the company, headed by billionaire Sunil Mittal and nearly a third owned by Southeast Asia's biggest phone operator Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, to earn Rs 1,527 crore, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Total revenue rose 3.6 percent from a year earlier to Rs 23,016 crore, Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

(Reuters)