Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s biggest telecommunications company by revenue and users, on Monday said its net profit for the July to September quarter declined 2 per cent to Rs 1,523 crore from Rs 1,554 crore in the sequential quarter ending June 30, 2015. Its profits were at Rs 1,383.2 crore during the same quarter a year earlier.

During the fiscal second-quarter, its revenue was almost flat compared to the previous quarter at to Rs 23,836 crore from Rs 23671 crore a year earlier, the company said in a filing to the stock exchanges. The company’s revenue during the fiscal first-quarter was at Rs 22,861 crore.

Earnings at the New Delhi-based telecommunications were impacted by higher net interest costs and foreign exchange losses.

During the quarter, net interest costs increased from Rs 687 crore to Rs 1,053 crore a year earlier, while adverse movements in African currencies during the quarter led to foreign exchange and derivative losses of Rs 809 crore, significantly higher than Rs 219 crore in the corresponding quarter last year, it said.

Despite the impact, Bharti Airtel’s profits were boosted by increased usage of high-margin internet services by its subscribers, across its operations in India, South Asia and Africa, which grew 49.8 per cent from a year earlier to Rs 3,806 crore, fuelled by a 76.3 per cent growth in mobile data traffic during the quarter, it said.

In India, Bharti’s revenue during the quarter grew 13.3 per cent after adjusting for impact in reduction of termination rates. Its revenues from mobile phone operations grew 12.3 per cent, wholesale business increased by 19 per cent, while its direct-to-home television business increased by 22.6% during the quarter, compared to a year earlier.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has reduced the interconnect charges for incoming phone calls from 20 paise/ minute to 12 paise/minute from May 1, and reduced the national roaming call charges and SMS rates between 20 per cent-75 per cent. Additionally, operators are competing with each other by slashing down tariffs for using internet on mobile phones to both retain existing users and gain new users, which has put pressure on earnings of mobile phone operators.

“Mobile data revenues has grown by 60%. With the commercial launch of high speed 4G services across 334 towns and roll-out of 3G services in our gap circles, we are now best positioned in the industry to leverage the fast growing data market,” Gopal Vittal, chief executive of Bharti Airtel’s India and South Asian operations said in a statement.

Increased usage of internet on cellphones by Bharti Airtel’s users pushed its average revenue per user for data services by Rs 42 compared to a year earlier to Rs 193. The usage went up by 35.9 per cent per user during the quarter. At end of September quarter, Mobile data revenue contributed 21.5 per cent of its India revenue from mobile phone services, up from 14.5 per cent during the same period last year.

At its Africa operations, Bharti Airtel saw its revenue grow by 5.1 per cent in constant currency terms, adjusted for the impact of divestment of its tower assets. The growth was helped by a data revenues that grew 40.6 per cent from a year earlier to at $138 million, led by increase in data customer base by 29.4 per cent and traffic by 104.5 per cent, it said.

At end of September, Bharti Airtel’s net debt – excluding the deferred payment liabilities to Department of Telecommunications for the spectrum it bought through auctions and finance lease obligations – increased from $10,687 million in June quarter to $10,766 million, it said.

The New Delhi-based company had about 339 million users on its network at end of September, up from 331 million at end of June, it added.

The stocks of the company were trading 1.11 per cent up at Rs 362.75 at 9.27 am after the results were announced.