Bharti's African biz looking up; arrests declining revenue

Bharti Airtel today said it has arrested the declining trend in revenues of its African operations, which it had acquired early this year for $10.7 billion from Kuwait-based Zain Telecom.

International Operations Head Manoj Kohli said Bharti had managed to arrest declining trend of revenue and subscribers in the African markets.

Bharti had acquired telecom assets in Africa from Kuwaiti group Zain in June, in a deal valued at $10.7 billion.

Kohli further said Bharti will invest $800 million for its Africa operations till March 31, 2011.

Airtel's African operations reported a revenue of Rs 3,890 crore for the second quarter ended September 30.

The revenue from the African operations helped Bharti Airtel's total revenue to increase by 46.6 per cent to Rs 1,52,15 crore, from Rs 1,03,78 crore in the same period last year.

However, Bharti Airtel has reported a 26.53 per cent dip in its net profit for the second quarter ending September 30, at Rs 1,661.2 crore.

Bharti, which is betting big on Africa, said there are signs of a turnaround in money-losing African operations.

"There are early results of positive elasticity in Africa," Kohli said.

The average minutes of use per user increased by over nine per cent to 112 minutes in the three-month period ending September.

However, the  monthly average revenue per user, a key indicator of profitability, dropped by 1 per cent to $7.4.

The total subscriber addition in Africa increased by 10 per cent.

By the end of September, Bharti Airtel has 40 million subscribers in its African network.

Talking about price war, Kohli said: "There’s no intention of any price war (in Africa). We want competitive tariffs. We've to retain the pricing power in Africa."

Bharti will launch its brand in Africa in the next few weeks.