 "airtel, bharti airtel, airtel payments bank")
India's Bharti Airtel Ltd posted a surprise first-quarter profit on Thursday, helped by tax gains in the period.
Profit fell 73.5 per cent to Rs 973 million ($14.17 million) for the quarter ended June 30, as a pricing war that has upended the telecoms sector continued to weigh on the mobile carrier.
The company had reported a profit of Rs 3.67 billion a year earlier.
Analysts, on average, expected a net loss of Rs 3.08 billion, according to estimates by Thomson Reuters.
Revenue fell about 9 per cent to Rs 200.80 billion, the company said in a statement.
