Bharti Airtel gives up early gains; shares end flat

Paring all its early gains on profit-booking and weakness in the broader market, shares of the country's largest telecom company Bharti Airtel today ended the day marginally lower.
Shares of the company settled at Rs 372.30, down 0.23 per cent on BSE after earlier rising by 3.14 per cent to Rs 384.90 during the day.
At NSE, the stock ended flat at Rs 372.70, down 0.09 per cent.
On the volume front, 4.31 lakh shares of the company changed hands at BSE and over 90 lakh shares were traded at NSE during the day.
Bharti Airtel yesterday reported a 2.8 per cent jump in net profit at Rs 1,290 crore for the March quarter despite over 25 per cent rise in depreciation and spectrum amortisation expenses.

The Sunil Mittal-led company had reported a net profit of Rs 1,255 crore in the January-March period of 2014-15.

Total revenues of the company rose 8.4 per cent to Rs 24,960 crore for the reported quarter as compared to Rs 23,016 crore last year.
The firm said depreciation and amortisation expenses amounted to Rs 4,816.3 crore as compared to Rs 3,840.1 crore in the corresponding quarter last year, which reflects an increase of 25.4 per cent, primarily led by incremental depreciation and higher spectrum amortisation expenses in India.
For the entire 2015-16, the company's net profit stood at Rs 5,484 crore whereas total revenues were to the tune of Rs 96,532 crore.

Bharti Airtel also announced a buyback up to an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 1,434 crore, at a price of Rs 400 per equity share, representing 0.90 per cent of the total paid up equity share capital of the company.
In the broader market, the 30-share Sensex slumped 461 points to end at 25,603.10.