May 02, 2012, 12.09 PM IST

Bharti Airtel Q4: The miss is on taxes front, says Daiwa

Bharti Airtel reported its fourth quarter results today. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Ramakrishna Maruvada of Daiwa Capital Markets says, it looks like the miss is on the taxes front.

Bazaar at 08:00 am

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Ramakrishna Maruvada, Analyst, Daiwa Cap

Bharti Airtel reported its fourth quarter results today. The company’s consolidated net profit fell to Rs 1,006 crore from Rs 1,400 crore a year earlier.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Ramakrishna Maruvada of Daiwa Capital Markets says, it looks like the miss is on the taxes front.

Below is the edited transcript of his interview with CNBC-TV18's Mitali Mukherjee. Also watch the accompanying video.

Q: What did you make of Bharti's numbers because the observation seems to be while revenues are sluggish operationally, it's been a strong quarter for Bharti?

A: I would tend to concur with that assessment. It looks like the miss is on the taxes front. If I were to look at the operational numbers, revenues are 1% below what the street was looking for. But the difference is coming in mostly on the African side of the business where we know they have been issues on the Nigerian part of it, primarily due to the strike.

Looking at the margins, margins have improved 1 percentage point quarter-on-quarter for the overall group. The Indian margin again has improved. That means the issues that we had in the Q3 of this financial year, primarily on the enterprise side is slightly behind us. But it’s the taxes that seem to have caused the big miss.