The Hindu : Business : Bharti net zooms

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 28, 2007
ePaper

Business

Business

Bharti net zooms

Special Correspondent

To step up capex to $3.5 b for India and Sri Lanka

— PHOTO: KAMAL NARANG

ACCELERATED GROWTH: Sunil Bharti Mittal (right), Chairman and Group Managing Director, Bharti Enterprises, with Rajan Bharti Mittal, Joint Managing Director, Bharti Tele-Ventures, addressing a press conference in New Delhi on Friday. — PHOTO: KAMAL NARANG

NEW DELHI: Total revenues of Bharti Airtel grew by 59 per cent to Rs. 18,520 crore and the net profit by 89 per cent to Rs. 4,257 crore for the year ended March 31, 2007, company Chairman and Managing Director Sunil Mittal said here on Friday.

Revenues for the quarter ended March 31, 2007, improved by 58 per cent to Rs. 5,393 crore and the gross profit by 75 per cent to Rs. 2,241 crore. The net profits for the quarter was Rs. 1,353 crore, a growth of 98 per cent over last year. Bharti now has nearly four crore customers, representing an 86 per cent rise in the customer base as compared to last fiscal. "We have stepped up capital expenditure for this fiscal to about $3.5 billion for India and Sri Lanka, out of which 75 per cent will go towards mobile network expansion and DTH services,'' Mr. Mittal said. The company, which had invested Rs. 32,000 crore on networks, would set up 30,000 more base stations to carry mobile signals mostly in rural and new areas.

In line with emerging international practice, Bharti has adopted a rotation policy for statutory and internal auditors for a maximum tenure of five years and rotation of audit partner every three years. Accordingly, the board has recommended the appointment of S R Batliboi and Associates as statutory auditors and Ernst and Young as auditors for US GAAP for the current fiscal. The board has also proposed to appoint PriceWaterhouse, chartered accountants, as internal auditors after conclusion of its tenure as statutory auditors of the company.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business