BENGALURU, Aug 5 Reuters India39;s Bharti Airtel reported firstquarter profit above expectations on Monday as more users paid for faster and higher margin 4G and 5G services.

Consolidated net profit for the first quarter rose more than two fold to 41.60 billion rupees 495 million, beating analysts39; average estimate of 38.69 billion rupees, per LSEG data.

The country39;s number two telecoms operator by subscribers offers premium internet and bundle plans to its users and has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of growing adoption of mobile internet in the country, thus helping its average revenue per user ARPU.

Its ARPU, a key performance metric for telecoms, rose to 211 rupees during the quarter, a 1 sequential growth and 5.5 increase from last year.

Bharti Airtel39;s strategy is in stark contrast to market leader Reliance Industries39; Jio Infocomm, which focuses on increasing its subscriber base by offering rockbottom prices.

No. 3 telco Vodafone has been lagging both in terms of subscribers and ARPU growth.

The telco39;s revenue from operations climbed nearly 3 to 385.06 billion rupees, inline analysts39; estimates of 385.13 billion rupees.

1 84.1000 Indian rupees

Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee

Source Reuters