Bharti Airtel has reported a net profit of Rs. 25, 167 million, up 24 percent from Rs. 20,250 million reported for the same quarter last year. Consolidated revenues grew to Rs. 99,416 million for the quarter, up 17 percent year on year from Rs. 84,883 reported for Q1 last fiscal. Deputy CEO Sanjay Kapoor said that the mobile business is going through a hypercompetive phase, and the company feels that its focus on building a "minutes factory" is coming through now. They grew their minutes traffic by 10.1 billion minutes this quarter, at 7.7 percent. Details: Release | Financials | Quaterly Report | Key Performance Indicators The key area of focus for Bharti Airtel is Rural now: Kapoor said that about 54% of their new customers come from Rural India. "That's the route to go, and the business model has been attuned to service the customer in that fashion -whether we've got the right partners, or the collection process," Kapoor said. Consolidated EBITDA margins increased for the quarter to 41.8 percent, from 41 percent last quarter. During the quarter, Airtel's mobile subscriber base grew to 102,368,000 from 93,923,000, up 9 percent quarter on quarter, and a 48 percent growth year on year. This growth is in line with the growth in India's subscriber base. Declining ARPU With the increase in traffic, Airtel's ARPU has dropped significantly from Rs 305 last quarter to Rs 278 in Q1-10. During the conference call, the management said that there are a large number of free minutes floating around,…
