Airtel Mobile Business Shows an Organic Growth

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Airtel

Bharti Airtel released its Q2FY23 Earnings on October 31 recently, and let us now delve into the highlights of the reported results comparing with the market offerings along with our experiences in a unique way.

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Key Highlights of Airtel Mobile Business:

- Mobile ARPU: Rs 190
- Mobile 4G Data Subscribers: 210.3 Mn in Q2 2023.
- Data consumption per customer at 20.3 GB per month
- Voice Usage: Voice usage per customer at 1,082 mins /month.
- Mobile Data Traffic Growth: 19.6% to 12,559 PBs compared to 10,497 PBs in Q2 2022.
- Voice traffic: 1,063 Bn Minutes during the quarter as compared to 1,020 Bn Minutes in the corresponding quarter last year.
- Mobile services India revenues are up 24.8% YoY, led by continued 4G customer addition and an increase in ARPU.
- Network Towers: By the end of the quarter, the company had 253,998 network towers as compared to 222,812 network towers in the corresponding quarter last year.

Wireless Subscriber Numbers: TRAI

Let’s also look into the wireless subscriber numbers of the telco as per TRAI for the last six months.

Sl. No	Month	Wireless Subscriber Base	Net Addition	VLR (%)
1	March 31, 2022	360,331,264	2255629	98.74
2	April 30, 2022	361,147,280	816016	97.65
3	May 31, 2022	362,175,161	1027881	97.98
4	June 30, 2022	362,968,293	793132	98.41
5	July 31, 2022	363,481,765	513472	97.99
6	August 31 2022	363,807,970	326205	98.31

Irrespective of competition with lucrative tariffs, the TRAI numbers show that the wireless subscriber numbers are positive. Overall Customer base stands at approximately 364 million at the time of Airtel reporting results.

Organic Numbers:

If we observe the market dynamics, the competition is offering the cheapest tariff with benefit components including Night Unlimited, weekend rollovers, and Festival Bulk Data benefits on yearly plans (Sticky plans we say), which are not present with the offerings of Airtel. But still, the telco managed to garner subscriber numbers and growth, which shows the organic nature of the additions, the seriousness of the business and the segment of subscribers. As a result, ARPU moved from Rs 183 to Rs 190. We will soon discuss all the prepaid plans of Airtel in another story.

Sequential revenue growth of 4%:

The telco was also successfully able to upgrade feature phones to smartphone users, which means the feature phone users are satisfied with the wireless service they received and are ready to continue and experience the 4G offerings of the telco at tariffs offered by the telco. In our experience as well, the VoLTE is very stable and superior, unlike the early days of the 4G journey.

Airtel Vo-Wi-Fi:

Vo-Wi-Fi is an essential service to offer indoor quality to subscribers who avail wireline broadband services. If you are on a compatible handset and connected to Wi-Fi, the device automatically connects to Vo-Wi-Fi service. Airtel said it has scaled up Vo-Wi-Fi adoption to improve the indoor experience and now has 47 million customers using Vo-Wi-Fi services. This helps enhance voice quality parameters to end customers.

The telco also reported that it was able to focus on data monetisation based on its digital capabilities, which means customers are getting acquainted with the digital platforms offered by the telco and are aware of the extra data benefits available to them.

Mobile Segment:

Airtel is strong in the Postpaid segment, and no doubt concerning this. This stickiness comes only with trust when a customer gets ready to rely on the quality offered by the telco of choice without bothering much about the fluctuating prepaid benefits or other postpaid plans available in the market. This parameter is reflected in results too, where Airtel saw 300K new additions in the postpaid segment, and we think this is the time for Airtel to up its postpaid segment. One of our favourite segments for customers of likeminded. Airtel Black is another segment of Postpaid for customers who need services without a second thought. We expect a premium service when it comes to postpaid – Take the offering (at least for us, Quality and Digital Innovation matters) and enjoy the experience hassle-free. Although there is always a scope for improvement, we expect Airtel Black to turn more into a unique segment that caters for every aspect of customer’s digital life.

To sum it up, Airtel has an overall positive Mobile Business growth. More of the analysis and findings stories to come.

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