Incumbent Indian mobile operator Bharti Airtel has reported a net profit for the June quarter of 11.08 billion rupees ($184.2 million), up 60.9% year-on-year.
Consolidated revenue for Airtel's fiscal first quarter grew 13.3% year-on-year to 229.62 billion rupees, thanks in large part to growth in mobile data earnings.
Total mobile data revenue grew 73.9% to 22.04 billion rupees, with the segment consistently contributing more than one third of incremental revenue growth.
Airtel's domestic Indian mobile revenues grew 9.9%, while revenue from its South Asian operations were up 11.7%. Indian mobile data revenue also surged 68.2% year-on-year and accounted for 12.4% of total Mobile India revenues.
Afican revenues meanwhile increased 17.5% in rupee terms and 12.1% in constant currencies. African data revenues grew to $102 million, or around 8.8% of overall Africa revenues. African data ARPU meanwhile increased to $1.50 from $1.23.
The number of active subscribers to the Airtel Money mobile payment service more than tripled year-on-year to 4.3 million.
“Telecoms are back to growth in Africa, this time spearheaded by internet and mobile money,” Aairtel CEO, Africa Christian de Faria commented.
Airtel CEO for India and South Asia Gopal Vittal added that the Indian telecom sector is eagerly awaiting the award of new 3G spectrum, as well as the implementation of policies enabling spectrum sharing and trading.
“These have become essential to deliver sustained broadband growth and high quality service,” he said.