India's Bharti's fourth-quarter profit dives 31%

India's top mobile phone firm Bharti Airtel said Friday it had picked US computer giant IBM to supply information technology services to drive modernisation of its new African operations.Bharti Airtel, the world's fifth-largest mobile phone company, completed in June the purchase of Kuwait-based Zain's African cellular assets at a cost of 10.7 billion dollars.The decade-long tie-up will allow Bharti Airtel to "deliver innovative and affordable 2G and 3G mobile services across the (African) continent," the New Delhi-based company said in a statement.

India's largest mobile phone operator Bharti Airtel said Monday it was in exclusive talks to buy the Africa assets of Kuwait's Zain telecom group for 10.7 billion dollars.The talks will run until March 25, Bharti said in a statement."This potential transaction doesn't include Zain's operations in Morocco and Sudan and remains subject to due diligence, customary regulatory approvals and signing of final transaction documentation," Bharti Airtel said."There can be no assurance that a transaction will be consummated," it added.

Kuwait's Zain telecom and India's top mobile firm Bharti Airtel are expected to sign a 10.7 billion dollar deal for the sale of Zain's African assets on Tuesday, a Kuwaiti daily reported.Citing unnamed informed sources, Al-Watan daily said the signing ceremony "will take place on Tuesday at the headquarters of Zain Africa," in Amsterdam.Zain entered the African telecom market in 2005 by acquiring the operations of the Dutch Celtel firm for around 3.5 billion dollars.

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Bharti Airtel has offered up to $10.7 billion for the African assets of Kuwaiti telecom group Zain, Kuwaiti newspapers reported on Saturday, as India's largest mobile operator makes a renewed foreign push.

Kuwait's Zain telecom said on Wednesday it has posted an unaudited net profit of 2.7 billion dollars from the sale of its African units to India's Bharti Airtel for 10.7 billion dollars.The profit is from the amount the firm has received so far and it expects to achieve more profit when it receives the rest, Zain said in a statement posted on the Kuwait Stock Exchange website.The Kuwaiti firm announced on Tuesday it has completed the deal to sell its operations in 15 African nations to Bharti Airtel following months of negotiations.

Savage competition in India's fast-growing telecom industry that hit sector profits is easing and "sanity" is returning, the head of the country's top mobile phone operator Bharti Airtel, says."Hyper competition in the market with 12 to 13 players, many of whom happened to be new entrants, is clearly abating," Sunil Bharti Mittal said in Bharti's annual report posted on the company's website on Monday."Some semblance of sanity is being restored and consolidation is imminent," Mittal said in the report.

Infosys Technologies, India's second-biggest outsourcing company, said Tuesday net profit slipped in the three months to March as it was hit by a strengthening rupee.Consolidated net profit in the fiscal fourth quarter fell 0.9 percent year on year to 16 billion rupees (359 million dollars), just below market forecasts of 16.05 billion rupees, the firm said.The profit fall came despite a 13 percent rise in revenues to 59.44 billion rupees in the fourth quarter of the financial year to March 31, 2010, it added.