Bharti shrugs off 3% fall in average user revenue

Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd. Friday shrugged off a small fall in the average revenue per customer in the quarter ended June, describing the decline as "normal".

In April-June, the average revenue per user, or ARPU, fell 3 per cent from the previous three months, Bharti Tele-Ventures told reporters.

Joint managing director, Akhil Gupta said he was not worried by the fall. It was "not unrealistic". "We had a 3 per cenr fall in ARPU quarter-on-quarter, which is normal," he said.

"In any telecom company, new customers initially have low ARPU," he said, noting Bharti Tele-Ventures added 900,000 new mobile phone customers in the three months ended June.

Gupta said he was heartened by the rise in the customers. The expansion was across telecom regions. Earlier yesterday, the big telecom services company said its total subscriber base had expanded to 8.37 million at the end of June.

ADR issue: Meanwhile, Bharti announced that it was seeking shareholder nod for offering up to 200 million shares through an American Depository Receipt (ADR) issue.

At the current stock market price, the issue would rake in about Rs 3,042 crore. The number of equity shares to be offered by the shareholders has not been fixed, the company said.

The company is considering filing a statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission during the second quarter.