Airtel to buy out Bangladeshi unit

Dylan Bushell-Embling
03 May 2013
00:00

Bharti Airtel has arranged to acquire the remainder of its Bangladeshi subsidiary, as the company reported a near halving of profit for its latest financial year.

Airtel said it will buy out the 30% stake in Airtel Bangladesh still owned by Warid Telecom.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Airtel acquired a 70% stake in Warid's Bangladeshi operations in January 2010.

Separately, Airtel reported a 47% slump in net profit for the year ending in March to 22.67 billion rupees ($422.9 million). Total revenue grew 12% to 803.1 billion rupees.

Domestic earnings were rocked by a series of regulatory orders including a 2% hike in service tax, restrictions on promotional pricing flexibility and stricter subscriber verification rules, the financial report states. While the mobile market showed signs of rationalization, competition remains intense.

Net income from India fell to 44.87 billion rupees, from 558.6 billion a year earlier.

Revenue from Airtel's African operations meanwhile grew 21.3% to 240.4 billion rupees, but Airtel's net loss from the region grew 66% to 22.09 billion rupees.

The company ended the year with 259.8 million mobile customers – 196.1 million from India and South Asia, and the rest from Africa.

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