Bharti Airtel on Friday reported a robust 98 per cent increase in its fourth quarter net profit at Rs 1,353 crore as its revenue soared 58 per cent to Rs 5393 crore riding on volume growth, lowest call rates and network expansion.

For the fourth quarter ended March 2007, the Sunil Mittal company posted an Ebidta (earnings before interest, depreciation, taxation and amortisation), reflecting the consolidated earnings, including that of subsidiaries at Rs 2241 crore, an increase of 75 per cent up year-on-year.

Bharti Airtel added the highest ever net addition of 53 lakh customers in a single quarter.

Bharti, which enjoys a market cap of Rs 1.63 lakh crore has also overshot its investment for the current fiscal at 3.5 billion dollar or Rs 15,000 crore to retain the lead in the Indian market where it enjoys a 23 per cent market share in wireless subscriber segment. So far Airtel has investment plans annually in the region of 1.2-1.5 billion dollar.

"We have stepped up the capital expenditure for 2007-08 to 3.3-3.5 billion dollar for India and Sri Lanka, out of which 75 per cent will go towards mobile network expansion and DTH services", Mittal said.

With the highest ever net addition of 1.8 crore total subscribers in 2006-07, Bharti Airtel posted a whopping 89 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 4257 crore for the fiscal 2006-07 over 2005-06.

The total revenues of the company during the year was up 59 per cent year-on-year at Rs 18,520 crore.

The Ebidta was up 72 per cent year-on-year at Rs 7451 crore.

However in a day when stock market was down, the Bharti scrip was down 2.9 per cent at Rs 837.

Bharti Airtel, which has so far invested about Rs 32,000 crore on networks, will set up 30,000 more base stations that carry mobile signals adding to its existing stations of 40,000.

With a presence in 23 telecom circles, Mittal said in the coming competition coming from several quarters, his company would like further its market share through subscriber addition and wants to be a globally acknowledged company.

Sunil Mittal CMD Bharti Airtel said, "this has been a year of accelerated growth and market leadership, the demand for telecom services across all segments remain buoyant and we believe this growth momentum can be sustained."

Bharti Airtel, which is the largest mobile company by subscribers, is also gearing up for the 3g or advanced mobile data and voice service launch policy and it will be announced shortly.

The company posted a cash profit of Rs 2,193 crore during the fourth phase of 82 per cent year-on-year. While for the fiscal 2007 the cash profit stood at Rs 7,307 crore an increase of 79 per cent year-on- year.

During Q4, the company witnessed a five per cent reduction in its blended average revenue per user (ARPU) of Rs 406 per month as compared Q3. the blended monthly usages per customer in the fourth quarter ended March was at 475 minutes, an increase of 2 per cent over the quarter ended December. The non-voice revenue, which include SMS, voice mail service, call management and other value added services, contributed 10.1 per cent of the total revenue.

Gupta said the company does not consider ARPU as the best measure to see profit.

Bharti, which recently bagged the GSM license in Sri Lanka, is on the look-out for acquisitions also.

"We are looking at the global front for acquisitions. We are in active persuasion of licenses in Africa, SAARC and Middle East countries. There is no funds kept for acquisition and once we get to the target company we will work out the way of funding, he said.

Bharti Airtel, which has a gross debt of Rs 5246 crore, said, 50 per cent of the Rs 15000 would be through imports (foreign loans).

Bharti, whose 30.8 per cent stake is owned by Sigtel, has a mobile subscriber base of 3.7 crore and its total subscriber base is 3.9 crore as on March.

As for government directive, it had completed 100 per cent verification of its subscribers and in the process had disconnected three lakh subscribers who are coming back to the company after submitting the necessary documents.

Bharti Airtel one of the first companies to enter into mobile telephony after the sector was opened up 12 years ago is also going to start new services like direct to home services (broadcasting) and IP TV.

It will start IP TV this fiscal and in case of DTH it is waiting for license, Mittal said.