India's Bharti Airtel revealed its net income for its fiscal third quarter more than doubled, partly on the back of strong mobile data gains.
Airtel's profit for the December quarter grew 135.4% year-on-year to 14.36 billion rupees ($232.05 million). Total revenue grew 5.8% year-on-year to 232.17 billion rupees.
Mobile data revenues meanwhile surged 61.9% year-on-year, with the segment now accounting for 85% of Airtel's incremental revenue growth.
Revenue from India grew 12.6% year-on-year, with domestic mobile revenue up 13% and mobile data revenue climbing 74.3%. India data ARPU grew from 34 rupees to 170 rupees, and mobile data revenues contributed 16.2% to total India mobile revenues.
Africa revenue meanwhile increased 3.9% in local currencies but fell 5.3% in US dollar terms. Africa data revenues grew 34.9% year-on-year to $116 million, or around 10.5% of total Africa revenues.
The operator ended the quarter with a mobile customer base of nearly 300 million, including 217.2 million in India and 74.6 million from the 18 countries in its African mobile footprint. Year-on-year, Airtel's total mobile customer base increased by 8.9%.
“Airtel's revenue growth in India has continued to accelerate. Revenue growth of
12.6% in Q3 is the highest in 9 quarters,” Airtel CEO for India and South Asia Gopal Vittal said.
“We remain focused on driving topline through stepped up customer acquisitions with continued focus on churn, ensuring pricing stability, and path-breaking innovations in mobile data.”