{"id":2961,"date":"2013-05-02T06:24:51","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T06:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disnaija.com\/nigeria-news\/telecom-airtel-records-losses-in-africa\/"},"modified":"2013-05-02T06:24:51","modified_gmt":"2013-05-02T06:24:51","slug":"telecom-airtel-records-losses-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/telecom-airtel-records-losses-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Telecom: Airtel records losses in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"
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India’s top telecoms company Bharti Airtel said Thursday its net quarterly profit halved in its final financial quarter to March, hit by fierce competition and punishing interest charges.<\/p>\n

Consolidated net profit for the three months to March tumbled to 5.08 billion rupees ($ 94 million), down from 10.06 billion rupees in the same period a year earlier.<\/p>\n

\"Airtel <\/p>\n

Airtel : losing money in Africa<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

The drop in profit marked the phone giant’s 13th straight quarterly fall and was well wide of analysts’ forecasts of a 7.0-billion-rupee profit, leading to a sharp fall in its shares.<\/p>\n

Despite the weak earnings, Bharti’s billionaire founder and chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said: “Market corrections have started… and pricing stability is returning to the sector in India.”<\/p>\n

Weighing on earnings were interest costs from Bharti’s hefty debt, incurred from the purchase of a faster 3G spectrum and the African mobile operations of Kuwait’s Zain in 2010.<\/p>\n

The group’s Africa operations, which it bought for $ 10.6 billion to extend its global footprint, are losing money.<\/p>\n

Bharti, the world’s fourth-largest operator globally, with 270 million clients, is one-third held by Singapore’s SingTel and operates in 20 countries across Asia and Africa.<\/p>\n

India’s telecom sector was a market star, but bruising price wars, which have pushed call rates to among the world’s lowest, have removed its shine.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that the number of major telecoms players has fallen from more than a dozen to just seven, due to a Supreme Court ruling that scrapped the licences of a number of smaller firms due to a scandal-tarnished sale, competition remains fierce.<\/p>\n

Bharti, which has a more than 30 percent market share, and other operators also face government calls to pay larger fees to renew licences in years ahead.<\/p>\n

India’s boom in phone connections has been overwhelmingly driven by cellular services and the country, with 900 million subscribers, is second only to China in terms of customer numbers.<\/p>\n

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