Bharti Airtel today released its quarterly report for the period October 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020. The telecom operator posted its highest-ever consolidated quarter revenues of Rs 19,007 crore- an increase of 25.1% YoY. Over the last few quarters, we saw Bharti Airtel adding more subscribers than Reliance Jio, which also resulted in ARPU increase. At the end of Q3 FY21, Airtel's 4G subscriber base stood at 165.6 million whereas ARPU increased to Rs 166. Reliance Jio posted an ARPU of Rs 151 at the end of the same quarter, so Airtel is still ahead in the ARPU front. Airtel ended the quarter with around 336 million overall subscriber base. Besides the wireless business, Bharti Airtel also witnessed highest-ever customers additions in both broadband and DTH sectors. The telco has added an impressive seven lakh postpaid customers during the quarter.
Bharti Airtel ARPU Boosted by Strong Postpaid Additions in Q3 FY21
Talking about the financial numbers first, Airtel's revenues for Q3 FY21 stood at Rs 19,007 crore, up by 25.1% YoY. The mobile revenues of Bharti Airtel increased by 32.4% YoY on account of the improved realisations as well as strong customer addition. The consolidated revenues for Q3’21 at Rs 26,518 crore grew 24.2% YoY.
As for the usage, the consolidated mobile data traffic stood at 8,191 PBs in the quarter with a decent YoY growth of 52.9%. The ARPU for the quarter came in at Rs 166 compared to Rs 135 in Q3 FY20, thanks to strong customer additions. The average data usage per data customer was 16.4GB per month, while voice usage was 1,027 minutes per customer per month. Compared to Q2 FY21, the ARPU saw an increase of just Rs 4 from Rs 162 to Rs 166. But still it is a decent number and better than that of Reliance Jio.
As noted, Airtel continues to garner new 4G customers. 4G data customers on the network increased by 33.8% YoY to 165.6 million. Over the last four quarters, Airtel has added around 42 million 4G customers.
Airtel also said it continues to witness strong traction in its postpaid business, adding around 7 lakh postpaid customers this quarter. Furthermore, the telco has over 18 million customers using VoWi-Fi service. VoWi-Fi is being rolled out by Bharti Airtel across all the devices.
Airtel Broadband and DTH Segment Also Witnesses Growth
In the quarterly report for Q3 FY21, Bharti Airtel also said the Home Business segment witnessed revenue growth of 2.3% YoY with highest ever customer additions of around 2,15,000. Airtel has been adding new broadband users every month, the monthly data revealed by Trai also said. At the end of Q3 FY21, Airtel Broadband has a user base of 2.79 million.
As for the Digital TV business, it witnessed a growth of 5.8% YoY on the back of strong customer additions of 4,85,000 during the quarter. Lastly, the digital services of Airtel like Airtel Thanks, Wynk and Xstream combinedly have MAUs of 190 million.
