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What you need to know: This weblog captures key data points about the global telecoms industry. I use it as an electronic notebook to support my work for Pringle Media.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

3G Bolsters Bharti Airtel


Bharti Airtel said its revenue in the third quarter of 2013 rose 10% year-on-year to 213.2 billion Indian rupees (3.34 billion US dollars). Revenues in India rose 6% to 140.8 billion rupees, while revenues in its international operations climbed 18% to 74.8 billion rupees (the growth was just 4% in US dollars). Revenue growth in Africa was 2% in US dollars.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Airtel, said: “Mobile internet is now a major engine of growth for Airtel across all geographies. Our sustained investment in this segment will further enhance customer experience and seamless coverage. The revenue growth in Africa reflects the inherent potential in the world's most promising continent. I am also pleased to see the evolution of Airtel Money into a significant service in geographies which are relatively under-banked.”

However, the company's capital spending was down 43% year-on-year at 21.4 billion rupees (just 10% of revenues). But Airtel said: "With 26,616 3G sites, Airtel has the largest 3G network in India. Further backed by inter-city and intra-city fiber networks and seven sub-marine cable systems, the company has been able to provide a superior internet experience to its customers. This has resulted in the data usage per customer increasing by 72.9% from 133 megabytes per month to 231 megabytes per month over the last twelve months. The data traffic grew significantly by 111.8% to 33.6 billion megabytes, while realisation has been stable at around 30 paise (0.5 US cents) per megabyte. Consequently, the data ARPU has increased from 43 rupees in the corresponding quarter last year to 70 rupees (1.1 US dollars) during the quarter." source: Airtel statement

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