Bharti Airtel Ltd on Monday reported a net profit of ₹759 crore for the March quarter due to an exceptional gain of ₹440.4 crore, the company said in a stock exchange filing. The telecom operator had posted a net loss of ₹5,237 crore in the year-ago period.
The company’s average revenue per user (Arpu) fell to ₹145 in the March quarter from ₹166 in October-December as operators scrapped interconnect usage charge (IUC), which contributes 7-8% in revenues across the industry, from 1 January. However, Airtel’s Arpu rose from ₹135 in the March quarter of fiscal year 2020.
“Arpu continues to be the best in the industry—Q4FY21 at ₹145 versus ₹135 in Q4FY20 on a comparable basis—an outcome of the company’s focus on acquiring quality customers as well as up-trading and upgradation of customers to 4G,” the company said.
The company’s 4G customers were at 179.3 million at the end of March, up 13.7 million from a quarter ago and 43 million higher than the same period last year. The average data usage per customer stood at 16.4GB (gigabyte)/month, while voice usage was at 1,053 minutes per customer in a month, the company said.
The total India customer base stood at 350.3 million as of 31 March, up 4.2% sequentially and 13.1% y-o-y. Airtel is the country’s second largest operator by market share.
Consolidated revenue from operations increased 17.6% year-on-year (y-o-y) to ₹25,747 crore during the fourth quarter of FY21. The Sunil Mittal-led company’s India business posted revenue of ₹18,338 crore for the March quarter, up 17.5% from a year ago.
Revenue from Airtel Business was up 9.7% y-o-y in Q4 on the back of strong demand for connectivity and solutions in the domestic as well as global market. “The company continues to expand and grow adjacent verticals such as data centres, cloud, cybersecurity, customer relationship management platforms, and videoconferencing,” it said.
India’s mobile services apart, Airtel also expanded its home business. It added the highest-ever customers (274,000) in home business during the March quarter.
“Homes business segment witnessed a revenue growth of 5% y-o-y. The company’s focus on recalibrated offerings and launch of Xstream bundles, with content and unlimited internet, to accelerate penetration has resulted in the highest-ever net addition of about 274,000 to reach to a total base of 3.07 million,” the company said.
The company is closely monitoring the covid-19 situation to identify risks and take immediate action to minimize any potential disruption from the pandemic to its business. “Our focus continues to be on delivering uninterrupted services and great end-user experience while ensuring safety of our employees and partners,” it said.
“It is this relentless focus on customer obsession that has allowed us to deliver another consistent quarter in terms of performance… Our digital assets continue to scale and we are beginning to see strong traction in monetization of these assets,” said Gopal Vittal, managing director and chief executive, Bharti Airtel.
The company’s consolidated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) grew 28.9% y-o-y at ₹12,583 crore during the March quarter. Ebitda margin stood at 48.9% in Q4, representing an expansion of 647 basis points from a year ago.
Airtel invested ₹5,141 crore in India operations, while capex for Africa business was at ₹1,546 crore during the fourth quarter, the company said.
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