The country’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Tuesday beat analysts’ estimates on almost all parameters during the January-March quarter on the back of volume growth in voice and data business. The company’s net profit saw a sequential jump of 15.49% at Rs 1,290 crore. Total revenue was up 3.7% at Rs 24,960 crore quarter-on-quarter while Ebitda growth increased 8.4% to Rs 9,188 crore. Ebitda margin also improved to 36.8% against 35.2% in the preceding quarter.

The company’s improved performance during the quarter was despite adjusting for lower termination charges and higher finance cost, up 23.2% R1,713.9 crore sequentially. However, narrowing of losses in the Africa operations to $59 million during the quarter compared with $74 million in the preceding quarter, which was largely due to tower divestment, also helped.

While realisations on data and voice continued to decline, expansion in volumes offset it. The growth in India mobile revenues increased 5% sequentially to R14,652 crore. During the quarter, while voice realisation per minute declined 1% sequentially to 33.25 paise, average realisation per user increased 1% to R138 and minutes of usage saw an increase of 3% sequentially to 415 minutes.

It was the same story in the data business. Data as a percentage of mobile revenue grew 23.3% against 23.1% in the preceding quarter. Realisation per MB declined 4% to 22.87 paise but usage on an MB basis grew 2% to 859 MB. Data Arpu saw a 2% sequential decline at Rs 196.

The company’s board approved a plan to buyback shares worth Rs 1,434 crore from investors. Bharti will buy a little more than 3.58 crore shares from the existing shareholders at Rs 400 apiece. The buyback price is about a 7% premium to the share’s closing price on Wednesday. The buyback constitutes about 0.9% of the total paid-up equity share capital of the company.

As per Bloomberg data, Bharti Airtel has Rs 11,700 crore of cash & equivalents on the books as on March 31, 2015.

“Solid execution has resulted in an acceleration of revenue market share even as our non-mobile businesses continue to grow smartly and now contribute materially to the overall Airtel growth story,” Gopal Vittal, managing director for India and South Asia operations at Bharti, said in a statement.

On the regulatory front, the biggest challenge before Bharti would be the upcoming auctions if the government decides to sell 700 MHz spectrum at the steep reserve price of `11,485 crore per MHz.

Otherwise, it has strengthened itself on the 4G front by acquiring spectrum in the 1800 MHz band from Videocon Telecommunications and 2300 MHz band from Aircel. It has, thus the capability to offer 4G services across the country, which steals the first-mover advantage from Reliance Jio Infocomm.

Ahead of the results announcement, shares of Bharti Airtel closed 3.53% higher at Rs 373.15 per piece, while the trading closed at 0.22% higher at the S&P BSE Sensex on Wednesday.