Bharti Airtel, in the last quarter, launched the Airtel Black postpaid plans, on the back of which it has been expected to boost its Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) and give an impetus to its finances. However, it is little known that besides the consumers' telecom business of Bharti Airtel, Airtel Business is one vertical where the Sunil Bharti Mittal-led telecom company is actually doing very well. The company’s finances constantly noted that Airtel Business had been Bharti Airtel’s strength, and in a time where the consumer business is facing a lot of brunt from many directions, Airtel Business is one vertical where the company has had positive feedback. Climbing further on its success, Bharti Airtel has recently launched the Airtel Office Internet for its corporate customers.
New Segment of Airtel Office Internet
The Airtel Office Internet service is an attempt at commercialising gigabit speeds and reliable FTTH connections for businesses. In the previous months, we have already seen Airtel Business’s intentions of focusing on the Small and Medium enterprises, and the Airtel Office internet service is just that. While the sub-gigabit segment has become immensely popular with the Indian households and companies like BSNL are adding 11 lakh subscribers in a single sweep, the corporate customers have very few options when it comes to internet services.
This is the gaping hole that Bharti Airtel wishes to fill in the market right now. The pricing of the plans of Airtel Office Internet also indicates that it is targeting the SMEs rather than the bigger fishes in the pond. The Office Internet service has plans starting at Rs 999. Not only this, but the gigabit speeds of 1 Gbps happens to be the selling point for Bharti Airtel. Also, to set apart these plans from the regular consumer-based broadband plans, Bharti Airtel has partnered up with Cisco and Google Cloud. While the first partnership will help Airtel in extending increased security on its network, the second one would allow it to offer various Google Workplace tools, which is something that almost every company uses amongst its employees. A single offering that is especially tailor-made for companies is surely bound to find its foothold in the market especially given with Bharti Airtel’s strong brand presence.
Airtel Business Contributing Major Chunk of Revenue
An ICICI Securities report revealed a few weeks back that Bharti Airtel’s major revenue chunk from Airtel Business, which is 14% to the consolidated revenue and 12% of the EBITDA in FY21. Airtel Business’s revenue has also registered a CAGR of 7.1% in the FY17-21. This growth took the revenue to Rs 144 billion. Also, the EBITDA of the business has grown at 12.9% CAGR to Rs 55 billion. Apart from this new Airtel Office Internet service, Bharti Airtel has been keen on products like Airtel Secure, Airtel IQ, Airtel Cloud, and Airtel IoT.
In an environment where the consumer telecom market is a tough nut to crack, and there is little to no regulatory help on the tariff side, Bharti Airtel is pragmatically switching gears to focus more on the business side of things. While its little strategies prove good for the ARPU on the consumer front, the Airtel Business moves are likely to build the EBITDA and consolidated profits.
