TheCable

Bharti Airtel, owners of Airtel Nigeria, have recorded an “exceptional loss” of N34.5bn ($111.4 m) to Nigeria’s foreign exchange policy.

Its consolidated net profit fell by 31 percent, from 21.13 billion rupees ($315.1 million) in 2015 to 14.62 billion rupees ($218 million) in the quarter ended June 30.

With about seven percent of its consolidated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) coming from Nigeria, Bharti Airtel says it was largely affected by the Nigerian policy.

“During the quarter, Nigerian Naira devalued by 42.1%, net forex losses of Rs 748 Crore on account of this has been classified under exceptional items,” Airtel said  in its quarterly result.

“Except for Nigeria, stable currencies in most of the geographies resulted in lower forex and derivative losses of Rs 309 crore compared to Rs 797 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

“After accounting for exceptional items (net gains of Rs 82 crore), the Consolidated Net Income for the quarter stands at Rs 1,462 crore compared to Rs 2,113 crore in corresponding quarter last year.”

The telecoms giant, which is India’s largest and world’s third largest mobile operator, also reported a sequential growth of 10.85 percent in Q1 net profit, with mobile data revenue going up by 34.1 percent.

During the quarter under review Airtel Nigeria partnered Facebook, the biggest social network in the world, to deliver free basic internet services for Nigerian subscribers.