Bharti Airtel – India’s largest mobile operator – reported a small profit in its latest quarter as it proved resistant to price wars currently underway in the country. Net profit for its fiscal-third quarter (ended 31 December) totalled INR22.10 billion (US$478 million), up 2.4 percent from a year ago, while revenues rose 1 percent to INR97.72 billion. According to a Wall Street Journal report, favourable currency-exchange rates ensured that the results were better than expected. However, chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said that “hyper competition” in the world’s fastest-growing mobile market continued to be a problem. ARPU fell to INR230 from INR252 rupees in the quarter as the company cut rates and launched new schemes such as per-second billing. ARPU was INR324 a year ago. The operator added 8.4 million users in the quarter, bringing its total to 119 million.

Rival operator IDEA Cellular also reported encouraging results this week, outperforming pessimistic expectations to report a 6 percent rise in sales for the fourth quarter of the year. According to India’s Economic Times, analysts had expected a drop of 2 percent. Net profit, excluding one-time charges, was flat compared to the prior quarter, but beat forecasts of a 32 percent decline. Its operating margin in its 11 established circles remained constant at over 30 percent, despite a roughly 10 percent reduction in tariffs. IDEA has launched services in seven new circles in the past nine months, becoming a pan-India operator.