Bharti Airtel recently revealed its financial results for Q4 FY23. The telco reported a rise in net income driven by growth in almost every area except DTH (Direct-to-Home). The interesting thing was the rise in mobile revenues despite no tariff hikes during the quarter. The telco did change the base tariff from Rs 99 to Rs 155 in all of the circles, but the revenue growth in mobile services came due to higher 4G and postpaid subscriber addition, said a recent ICICI Securities report. Airtel's mobile revenues grew 11% YoY, and ARPU (average revenue per user) was up 8.4% YoY.
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Airtel performed really well during the quarter on its non-mobile services. The telco's home broadband customers grew 34.9% YoY to 6 million. Airtel Africa also reported a rise in revenue (in USD terms) by 9.7% YoY to USD $1.3 billion. Reliance Jio's ARPU grew 6.7% YoY, while Airtel's ARPU grew 8.4% YoY during the quarter.
Airtel is enjoying the benefit of offering higher-cost services than its major competitor Jio. Reliance Jio's ARPU for Q4 FY23 stood at Rs 178.8, while Airtel's ARPU was Rs 193. Airtel has launched 5G in over 3000 cities in India. The telco is adding 30 to 40 new cities under its 5G list every day. Airtel believes that going with 5G NSA (Non-Standalone) was the best decision.
"Bharti is re-engineering its towers wherein it plans to relocate 66.5k towers from high-cost locations. Bharti has reduced commissions selectively in the past 45 days," said the ICICI Securities report. This would help the company in reducing waste. The report further said that for Airtel, the capex for FY24 would likely be similar to the capex for FY23.
"Bharti has stopped adding any 4G capacity BTS, and 5G capex beyond urban locations will depend on handset penetration. It will continue to invest in the transport network and enterprise business. It expects capex from FY25 onwards to moderate from highs of FY23/ FY24," said ICICI Securities.
