In a stock exchange notification, the net profit of the country's largest wireless carrier Bharti Airtel fell by 73 percent to Rs 83 crore in the January- March 2018 quarter.

The company led by Sunil Mittal experienced a drop of 3.4 percent in the revenue on a sequential basis to Rs 19,634 crore for the fourth quarter of the financial year 2018-19. The average revenue generated by each user fell to an all-time low of Rs 116 from Rs 123 in the third quarter. This is the seventh consecutive drop in the quarterly results of average revenue generated per user.

While its India business reported a loss of Rs 652 crore for the first time in 15 years, Bharti Airtel's Africa business touched an all-time high of Rs 699 crore.

Analysts say its losses in India were mainly triggered by Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd's fiercely competitive prices. With its entry into the telecom industry, Jio's cheap monthly tariff plans forced rivals to bring down their rates.

For the fourth quarter ended March 2018, Bharti Airtel reported

• a drop of 7.2 percent in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization for the quarter to Rs 6,930 crore.
• operating margin of 35.3 percent.
• an all-time high net debt to EBITDA ratio of 3.23.
• a net debt of Rs 95,228 crore.
• capital expansion of Rs 6,282 crore.