Bharti Airtel’s Q3 financial results reflect the future trends to expect from Indian mobile service providers where revenue growth appears to be a mammoth challenge.

The company managed a marginal revenue rise of 1.44% from Rs 9,633 crore last year to Rs 9,772 crore at the end of December 31, 2009. The net profit increased by 2% to Rs 2,210 crore from Rs 2,159 crore a year ago.

The company’s ARPU too declined 29% from Rs 324 to Rs 230. As expected the average rate per minute also declined from 64 paise to 52 paise. Average minutes per user declined from 505 minutes a year ago to 446 minutes by December 31, 2009.  

Churn rate for prepaid segment increased to 6.5 % from 2.9% a year ago. Even sequentially the churn rate is seen increasing as in the previous quarter the churn rate for prepaid segment was 4.6%.

However mobile value added services (MVAS) proved a savior to the company as SMS revenues rose from 4.1% last year to 6% now. Non-voice revenues too increased from 9.5% to 11%.

Commenting on the performance, Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti Airtel, said, "Bharti Airtel continues to ensure a robust market share despite the hyper competition and maintains its drive for internal efficiencies by leveraging its scale economics."