New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) India's largest telecom operatorBharti Airtel today reported a decline in consolidated netprofit for the seventh straight quarter to Rs 305.8 crore forthe three month period ended December 31, 2017 on account oftariff war in the industry.
The cut in mobile call connection charges from 14 paiseto six paise during the quarter added to the financial woes ofthe telecom giant.
Sunil Bharti Mittal led telecom firm had registered a netprofit of Rs 503.6 crore in the same period a year ago.
"Regulatory fiat in the form of a cut in domestic IUC(Interconnection Usage Charges) rates has exacerbated theindustry ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) decline in Q3'18,"Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India and South Asia, Bharti Airtelsaid in a statement.
The company - which competes with the operators likeVodafone, Idea Cellular and newcomer Reliance Jio in thehighly-competitive telecom market in India - saw its overallrevenue declining by 13 per cent to Rs 20,319 crore in thethird quarter as compared to Rs 23,336 crore in thecorresponding period last fiscal.
Established operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone andIdea Cellular are in the midst of a bruising tariff war afterthe entry of Reliance Jio backed by India's richest businessMukesh Ambani.
Reliance Jio's free voice and dirt cheap data offeringshave dented the financial metrics of incumbent operators.
The company registered six times growth in data usage at1.1 lakh crore megabyte (MB) in the third quarter of thecurrent fiscal from 17,200 crore MB in the same periodprevious year, and witnessed a record growth of 49.8 per centin network minutes at 49,450 crore on year-on-year basis.
Still, Bharti Airtel's India revenue, which accounts forover 75 per cent of the total business, declined by 15 percent to Rs 15,294 crore in the the period under review from Rs18,012.6 crore.
The average revenue per user (ARPU) of Bharti Airtel inIndia declined by 28.6 per cent to Rs 123 in the quarter fromRs 172 in the year-ago period.
On the other hand, the Africa revenues were up 5.3 percent in over the same quarter previous fiscal in constantcurrency terms.
However, in terms of Indian rupees, the Africa revenuedeclined by around 4 per cent to Rs 5,129.3 crore from 5,355.9crore on year-on-year basis.
The companyÂ’s consolidated net debt rose to Rs 91,714crore as against Rs 91,480 crore in the previous quarter.
Bharti Airtel invested Rs 6,465.7 crore in October-December 2017 period and installed around 32,000 mobilebroadband sites in India.
"The company's Board has declared an interim dividend ofRs 2.84 per share, which is a complete pass through ofdividend received from subsidiaries," the statement added.
Bharti scrip closed 1.17 per cent lower at Rs 494.50apiece on the BSE today. PTI PRS MBIBAL.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.