Bharti Airtel Profit Down 49.4% - Wall Street Journal (India)

By R. JAI KRISHNA NEW DELHI--Bharti Airtel Ltd.'s fiscal fourth-quarter net profit fell 49.4% from a year earlier, hurt by continued losses at the company's African unit. Bharti, in which SingTel owns about a 32% stake, has been struggling to grow in the face of intense competition and high interest costs on the debt it took on in 2010 to buy the African operations of Mobile Telecommunications Co. K.S.C. Bharti said Thursday its net profit for the three months ended March fell to 5.09 billion rupees ($94.76 million) from 10.06 billion rupees a year earlier. Consolidated sales rose 9.2% to 204.48 billion rupees. Ten analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires expected a net profit of 6.57 billion rupees. The company had more than $11.74 billion in debt at the end of March. It raised $1.5 billion from bonds during the just-ended quarter and has been looking to sell stakes in some of its units to reduce its debt. Bharti Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said conditions in the Indian telecom market have started improving, with higher-revenue-contributing subscribers and stable tariffs. "With Africa over its peak of organic investments we are optimistic about the potential for improved market shares and margin expansions," Mr. Mittal said in a statement. The company also said its unit Bharti Airtel Holdings Singapore Pte. Ltd. has agreed to buy the remaining 30% stake in Airtel Bangladesh Ltd. that it doesn't already own from its partner Abu Dhabi-based Warid Telecom. • Invalid email address. • You can't enter more than 20 emails. • Seperate multiple addresses with Commas. • Must enter an email address. • You must enter the verification code below to send. • Invalid entry: Please type the verification code again. via Top Stories - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHUIGTTioWMtMkoh-v8G2daeLOGQQ&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324266904578457904032093168.html

Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 2953939