Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator, has just announced its quarterly performance reports for Q1 FY25 (April – June 2024). The telco has posted a Rs 4,160 crore profit during the quarter, which is up 158% YoY. The net profit figure is this high due to the addition of exceptional items. Let’s take a look at the entire performance figures.
Airtel registered a quarterly revenue of Rs 38,506 crore during the quarter from its global business, up 2.8% YoY and 2.4% QoQ. The Indian business unit of Airtel posted Rs 29,046 crore in quarterly revenues, up 10.1% YoY. Mobile services revenue in India was up by 10.5% YoY led by strong 4G/5G subscriber additions. Airtel Business (B2B arm of Bharti Airtel) saw revenues go up by 8.3% led by growth in domestic portfolio.
The telco’s Homes Business revenues were up 17.6% YoY and Digital TV revenues were up by 5.0% YoY. The consolidated net income for the global business was Rs 2,925 crore, up by 0.8% YoY, and with the addition of exceptional items, the figure jumped to Rs 4,160 crore, up 158% YoY. The Indian business unit posted an EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) of Rs 6,612 crore.
The telco added 29.7 million new 4G/5G customers on YoY basis, while on a QoQ basis, Airtel added 6.7 million new customers. The postpaid subscriber base grew by 0.8 million users during the month, taking the total base to 24 million. The mobile ARPU jumped to Rs 211 from Rs 209 in the previous quarter. The mobile data consumption per customer per month was 23.7GB, up 26% YoY. Homes Business of the company added 348,000 new customers.
Airtel’s global customer base stood at 568 million (across 16 countries). The capex for the India business was Rs 6,781 crore.
Airtel added 6.3k new towers during the quarter and 15.5k new mobile broadband stations. Airtel’s Wi-Fi services are now live in a total of 1317 cities.
Mentioned below is the full statement from Bharti Airtel’s MD and CEO, Gopal Vittal:
“Q1FY25 was yet another steady quarter with India revenue growing at 1.9% sequentially and sustained EBITDA margins expansion to 53.7%. Our stringent focus on driving cost efficiencies is reflected in strong operating leverage. Africa continues to deliver strong underlying constant currency revenue growth. India operations added 6.7 Mn smartphone customers and reported an improved ARPU of Rs 211. Our postpaid strategy continues to yield results with 0.8 Mn net adds. During the quarter, we accelerated pace on FWA services expansion across key towns. Our Wifi services (FTTH and FWA) are now available in over 1300 cities. Our digital portfolio is shaping up well and it is geared for accelerated growth to add strength to our already diversified portfolio.
In the recently concluded spectrum auction, we successfully renewed spectrum that was expiring in 6 circles and further bolstered our sub-giga hertz and mid-band holding in key circles by investing Rs. 6,857 Crores. The industry saw much needed action on tariff repair, which is positive for industry’s financial health amid ongoing large network capex. We continue to believe that industry needs over Rs 300 ARPU at the minimum for financial stability.”
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