Bharti Infratel Q2 net profit up 31 per cent at Rs 777 crore

NEW DELHI: Bharti Infratel, India’s only listed telecom tower company, said net profit rose 31% year-on-year in the quarter to September, as mobile carriers invested aggressively towards building capacity to meet the demand for high-speed data.

The company is aiming to benefit from the recently-concluded spectrum auctions, following which Indian telcos gear up for the next round of network rollouts. “The telecom sector is already witnessing big increase in demand for high-speed data and availability of this additional spectrum will further spur investments from operators towards data rollouts across the country,” said Akhil Gupta, chairman, Bharti Infratel.

“Bharti Infratel is well poised to capitalise on this opportunity and to support telecom operators in rollout of 3G and 4G networks,” Gupta added.

Bharti Infratel, a unit of India's top mobile carrier Bharti Airtel, said consolidated net profit rose to Rs 774 crore in the quarter from Rs 592 crore in the year-ago period.

Consolidated revenue grew 8% year-on-year to Rs 3,292 crore. Its consolidated Ebitda, in turn, improved to Rs 1,454 crore, reflecting a 10% year-on-year rise, while consolidated Ebit at Rs 887 crore was up 18% year-on-year.

The company also completed buy-back of equity shares amounting to Rs 2,000 crore during the quarter, which was executed through open market sale. It bought back 47 million shares at Rs 425 apiece, returning surplus funds to shareholders on the back of healthy profits coming from telecom tower deployments through last few quarters.

Shares of Bharti Infratel gained 2.03% to close at Rs 369.85 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Monday. The results were announced after market hours. The company, which went public in 2012, is in the business of setting up towers on which telcos mount their base stations or the electronic devices that emit signals to cellphones.