Bharti Airtel Q4 profit up 30.5 percent, lags forecast

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's top mobile carrier Bharti Airtel reported a 30.5 percent rise in quarterly net profit, helped by strong subscriber growth for its mobile data services, although the rise was smaller than expected.

Bharti Airtel, which operates in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, said on Tuesday net profit rose to 12.55 billion rupees for its fiscal fourth quarter to March 31, from 9.62 billion rupees a year earlier.

Analysts, on average, had expected the company, headed by billionaire Sunil Mittal and nearly a third owned by Southeast Asia's biggest phone operator Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, to earn 15.27 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Total revenue rose 3.6 percent from a year earlier to 230.16 billion rupees, Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

(Reporting by Aman Shah; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)