Bharti Airtel's average revenue per unit (ARPU) declined 23% to reach Rs 145 in the second quarter from Rs 188 in a year-earlier quarter. The company, however, revealed that its mobile broadband customer base increased 33.6% year-on-year to reach 55.21 million in the quarter.
Airtel's overall data customer base increased 5% year-on-year to reach 65.7 million. Its overall subscriber base in India marginally increased by 0.5% in the second quarter to reach 282 million with 96.5% VLR.
Airtel's data usage per customer reached over 4 GB in the second quarter, up 308.7% on a yearly base, mainly driven by bundled plans and freebies.
Bharti Airtel's prepaid user base stood at 93.7% of the overall subscriber base in the country.
The telecom operator had 162,954 mobile towers in the country in the second quarter, up from 158,934 in a year earlier period. It had 123,181 mobile broadband towers in the quarter, up from 110,382 in a year earlier period.
Bharti Airtel said that it had 226,132 mobile broadband base stations in the country, up from 148,078 in a year earlier period.
Bharti Airtel's distribution channel is spread across 1.4 million outlets with network presence in 7,896 censuses and 786,032 non-census towns and villages in India covering approximately 95.3% of the country's population.
The telco's 3G and 4G services are spread across key cities in the country. Its national long distance infrastructure provides a pan-India reach with 232,150 Rkms of the optical fiber.
