Bharti Airtel on Wednesday posted a net profit of Rs 854 crore for the December quarter of 2020 compared with a loss of Rs 1,035 crore a year ago on the back of improved realisations and strong customer addition.

Revenue from operations increased 24 per cent to Rs 26,518 crore from Rs 21,343 crore during the same period a year ago. The revenue was Rs 25,060 crore in the September quarter of 2019-20.

Revenues for the India business grew 25.1 per cent year-on-year to Rs 19,007 crore.

Mobile revenues were up 32.4 per cent year-on-year led by improving realisations coupled with strong customer additions. The overall business revenues increased 9.2 per cent year-on-year on the back of strong demand for connectivity and solutions, the company said in a statement.

Mobile average revenue per user (ARPU) — a key metric for telecom companies — jumped to Rs 166 from Rs 135 in the third quarter of 2020-21.

The Airtel board approved the raising of funds as and when deemed appropriate, vide issuance of secured/unsecured, listed/unlisted non-convertible debt securities, including debentures and bonds up to Rs 7,500 crore.

The fundraising plan comes when the government has set the ball rolling for the spectrum auction in which radio waves valued at Rs 3.92 lakh crore will be put on the block.

The auction in seven spectrum bands for mobile services – 700, 800, 900, 1800, 2100, 2300 and 2500MHz bands – is scheduled to start from March 1.

Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India and South Asia, said: “Despite the unprecedented volatility that we have confronted through the year, we delivered another strong performance this quarter. This consistency in performance was across every part of our portfolio, as reflected in market share growth across all our business segments.”

“The main highlight of the quarter was the 13 million 4G customers we added in our wireless business,” the Airtel managing director said.

Fund-raising nod

The board of Bharti Airtel on Wednesday approved fund-raising plans of up to Rs 7,500 crore via debt instruments such as debentures and bonds, in one or more tranches. The move comes at a time the telecom sector is gearing up for spectrum auctions and roll-out of new-age technologies.

Airtel said that the 4G data customers increased 33.8 per cent year-on-year to 165.6 million and over the last 4 quarters, it has added 42 million 4G customers to its network.