Bharti Infratel posts Q4 profit of Rs 650 cr

Telecom infrastructure firm Bharti Infratel on Thursday posted consolidated profit after tax of Rs 650 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 2020.

The company had reported a profit of Rs 608 crore in the same period a year ago.

The telecom tower company recorded consolidated revenue of Rs 3,624 crore during the quarter. It had registered revenue of Rs 3,600 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2018-19.

The company said it adopted a new accounting system from April 1, 2019 and hence the result for 2019-20 is not comparable with past periods.

Bharti Infratel also extended the deadline for merger with Indus Towers by two more months to June 24.

For the year ended March 31, 2020, the company posted net profit of Rs 3,299 crore. The revenue for the fiscal stood at Rs 14,647 crore.

"After a few tumultuous years, the Indian Telecom industry took much needed constructive measures in the year gone by in the form of tariff increases. This along with encouraging trends on overall wireless data consumption has led to enhanced focus on improving the quality of networks.

"As a result, during the year both Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers witnessed an increase in gross additions both on towers and co-locations on a year-on-year basis," Bharti Infratel Chairman Akhil Gupta said in a statement.

The company had a total 95,372 mobile towers, which included 42 per cent of the units managed by Indus Towers.

"We believe this is a harbinger of the future especially as witnessed in the current environment of the Covid-19 crisis, where the nation's dependence on wireless networks has been further elevated," Gupta said.