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Bharti Airtel's Q2 profit falls 38% YoY missing estimates, revenue rises
Bharti Airtel Q2 profit falls 38% on one-time charge.
Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Tuesday reported a drop in second-quarter profit, hurt by a one-time exceptional loss.
Consolidated net profit fell to 13.41 billion rupees ($161.1 million) for the quarter ended Sept. 30, from 21.45 billion rupees a year ago. The results included an exceptional cost of 15.70 billion rupees.
Airtel and rival Reliance Jio Infocomm, India's top two telecom operators, have been racing to capture a bigger market share with investments worth billions of dollars on network infrastructure to expand 5G services in urban areas and 4G coverage in the rural.
Airtel said last month it has over 50 million users on its 5G service, compared with more than 70 million on Jio's 5G network.
Its revenue from operations rose 7.3% to 370.44 billion rupees, but missed an LSEG-polled analysts' estimate of 379.59 billion rupees.
Expenses climbed 3.5%, led by higher network operating and marketing expenses.
Last week, Jio reported its slowest profit growth in seven quarters, while Vodafone Idea posted a wider loss as its subscriber base continued to shrink.
