India’s leading telecom operator, Airtel has reported losses for the year that ended on fiscal 2017 and Q4 2016 in the mobility department. The primary reason for the losses is that the company is trying to match Reliance Jio in the tariff plans department. We have already reported Airtel’s insights on the mobile data usage department for the past one year.
Despite the losses posted in the GSM segment, the operator has strengthened its position in the DTH and broadband department. In 2016, Airtel rolled out the V-Fiber technology and became the first operator to deploy Vectorization in India. With the V-Fiber technology, Airtel delivered internet speeds of up to 100 Mbps. As of March 31, 2017, Airtel had 2.1 million customers under its belt representing a growth of 9.2 percent, compared to the 1.9 million at the end of previous year.
Coming to the Airtel Digital TV department, the company continued to increase the customer base and revenues. As of March 31, 2017, Airtel had its Digital TV operations in 639 districts. Under the service, it had 12.8 million subscribers at the end of the quarter, which accounts an increase of 9.3 percent compared to the same quarter last year.
The net customer additions for the Digital TV during the quarter is nearly 2,28,000. The Average Revenue per User (ARPU) for the quarter was at Rs. 228, which is almost equal to the corresponding quarter last year.
Airtel also said that the revenue of Digital TV services had increased by 10.4 percent to Rs. 8,657 million as compared to Rs. 7,840 million in the corresponding quarter last year. The Earnings before interest, taxes, and amortisation (EBITA) of the Digital TV business was at Rs. 3153 million as compared to previous quarter’s Rs. 2,750 million.
During the current quarter, the company incurred a capital expenditure of Rs 1,386 million. The resultant operating free cash flow during the quarter was at Rs 1,767 million as compared to the cash burn of Rs 193 million in the corresponding quarter last year.
