India's Bharti Airtel says quarterly profit rose

Bharti Airtel Ltd., India's largest mobile telephone company, said Wednesday that record subscriber growth fueled a 21 percent rise in quarterly profit, despite increasing competition in India's booming mobile phone market.

Net profit for the January-March quarter rose to 22.39 billion rupees ($459 million), while sales grew 26 percent to 98.25 billion rupees ($2.01 billion).

Bharti, which has been aggressively expanding in rural India, said it added 8.4 million customers during the period _ its highest ever addition for a quarter. That expanded its subscriber base to 96.6 million customers and inched up its market share to 24 percent from 23.7 percent last …