Airtel First-Half Pretax Profit Rises 36% on Wireless Boom
By Alexis Xydias and Michael Elkin
Madrid, Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Airtel SA, Spain's second- largest wireless telephone company, said first-half pretax profit rose 36 percent on rising sales in a booming wireless-phone market.
Airtel earned 106.6 million euros ($94.3 million) before tax, as revenue surged 46 percent to 1.2 billion euros, said a company spokesman, who didn't release year-earlier figures in a telephone interview.
The company's growth was underpinned by a surge in wireless- phone use in Spain. In June, Telefonica SA, the No. 1 service by sales, said 47.5 percent of Spain's population uses wireless phones, an increase from 37.5 percent in January.
Spain is expected to be the fifth-largest mobile-phone market in Europe in 2005 with 35 million users, according to a report from Chase H&Q.
Airtel would not reveal net income or other financial results.
The profit was reported earlier in Expansion newspaper.
Last week Vodafone Plc, the biggest wireless phone company, said it would pay three other shareholders about $2.1 billion in stock for another 8.5 percent of Airtel, raising its stake from 22 percent and boosting its control over the company, which isn't publicly traded. |
