Bharti Airtel’s H1 results to end-September reflected healthy year-on-year revenue growth of 13.3 per cent and 17.1% growth in EBITDA on a local currency basis, reflecting improved performances from all major segments.

Wireless business in India – which remained the group’s largest profit driver and contributed 56.6 per cent of consolidated EBITDA in H1 – reported year-on-year growth of 17 per cent in reported EBITDA. While adding a modest 4.4 per cent to its customer base, overall average revenue per user (ARPU) increased year-on-year by 8.5 per cent due to successful realisation increases, however quarter-on-quarter overall blended ARPU fell by four per cent mainly due to a seasonality issue. Although data users still only represent 26.2 per cent of total customer base in India, the 24.7 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of data users — and the subsequent 111.8 per cent year-on-year increase in total data usage – also contributed to the overall ARPU growth year-on-year.

Bharti’s international wireless business also reported H1 revenue and EBITDA growth of 11.4 per cent and 15.7 per cent in local currency terms compared to the same period last year. However the impact of rupee depreciation reduced growth to 2.4 per cent and 6.1 per cent in US dollar terms. Africa operations continued on its positive trend and reported a 13 per cent growth in total customers, though this increase was partially offset by a 10.9 per cent decrease in ARPU. Operating cash flow- using EBITDA – capex as a proxy – also stayed positive at about US$266 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 9.5 per cent.

Ooredoo has seen its third quarter profits plunge as the company was hurt by foreign exchange losses from its Indonesian subsidiary.

The company posted quarterly revenue that was down by 1.4 per cent at QAR8.5 billion (US$2.33 billion), and a net profit that fell by 58 per cent to QAR 337 million.

Excluding the Indosat impact, profits would have been flat year-on-year for the quarter.

Nasser Marafih, group CEO of Ooredoo said: "Ooredoo has continued to produce strong revenue growth in this period, with particularly impressive performances from Ooredoo Qatar, Nedjma and Asiacell."

Consolidated customers at the end of September came to 89.6 million, flat on the 89.2 million recorded at the end of the same period in 2012.

Excluding this foreign exchange impact, Ooredoo’s net profit to shareholders stood at the same level as in Q312, according to the operator, and increased by 12 per cent for the first nine months of 2013.

Econet Wireless, Zimbabwe’s leading mobile operator, reported a near 10 per cent fall in half-year profit in the six months to end-August 2013. The operator said it was affected by slowing growth in voice revenue and a one-time licence renewal fee.

The company’s profit during the period totalled US$70.56 million, down from US$78 million the previous year.

The number of subscribers rose to 8.5 million, while revenue grew by 11 per cent to US$376.6 million.

Econet also paid US$137 million to renew a 20-year licence in July, with CEO Douglas Mboweni stating the cellco’s mobile money transfer service, Ecocash, had processed US$1.2 billion in transactions in the last six months and now contributed 10 per cent of total revenue

Apple reported only a modest rise in revenues, but a fall in profits as its gross margin shrank in the quarter to end-September. Although iPhone sales rose, sales of its tablets were flat and computer sales fell.

For the three months to the end of September, the company posted revenue of US$37.5 billion, as compared to US$36 billion a year ago. Net profit came in at US$7.5 billion, down on the US$ 8.2 billion a year ago.

Gross margin was 37 per cent compared to 40 per cent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 60 per cent of the quarter’s revenue.

The company sold 33.8 million iPhones, a record for the September quarter, compared to 26.9 million in the year-ago quarter.

Apple however, only sold 14.1 million iPads during the quarter, flat on the sales of 14 million a year ago.

The company sold 4.6 million Macs, compared to 4.9 million in the year-ago quarter.

"We generated US$9.9 billion in cash flow from operations and returned an additional US$7.8 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases during the September quarter, bringing cumulative payments under our capital return program to US$36 billion," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO.

Wataniya Telecom announced that its customer base grew by 4.3 per cent year-on-year for the quarter to end-September, but revenue during the period declined by nearly as much as customers grew.

The total customer base increased to 19.7 million at the end of Q3 2013, up from 18.8 million a year earlier, resulting in growth of 4.3 per cent.

Revenues for the quarter however fell by 3.4 per cent to KD184.5 million (US$655 million). Net profit for the quarter also fell, by 1.2 per cent to KD15.3 million.

Revenues declined the most in the company’s home market of Kuwait, where the customer base and revenue both shrank. All the other markets the company operates in saw improvements.