Bharti Airtel Q2 net falls 29 pct on forex losses

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Bharti Airtel Ltd reported a 29 percent fall in quarterly profit on foreign exchange losses, the 15th consecutive quarter of declining profits for the world's No.4 mobile phone carrier by customers.

Consolidated net profit fell to 5.12 billion rupees for its fiscal second quarter ended September 30 from 7.21 billion rupees a year earlier, New Delhi-based Bharti Airtel said in a statement. Analysts on average expected a net profit of 6.90 billion rupees for the company, nearly a third owned by Southeast Asia's top phone carrier SingTel .

A weak rupee led to forex losses of 3.42 billion rupees in the latest quarter, it said. The company's consolidated net debt was at $9.7 billion at end-September.

 

Bharti Airtel operates across 20 countries in Asia and Africa. India is its main market accounting for about 70 percent of the total revenue.

(Reporting by Matthias Williams; Writing by Aradhana Aravindan; Editing by Matt Driskill)