Bharti Airtel posted a 54 per cent jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 2,442.2 crore in the December quarter, mainly on account of growth in high-value customers.
Airtel prepaid mobile customers are required to pay at least Rs 155 for about a month-long service as the company had raised rates 56 per cent in January 2023.
Bharti Airtel managing director Gopal Vittal has indicated a need for further increase in mobile service rates. Return on investment made by the company is still low at 9.4 per cent.
The company had registered a profit of Rs 1,588.2 crore in the year-ago period, a regulatory filing said.
The Street was expecting a net profit of Rs 3,200 crore and revenues of Rs 37,900 crore in the third quarter. The Airtel stock fell Rs 37.45 of 3.25 per cent on Monday to Rs 1,113.10.
On a standalone basis, net profit stood at Rs 1,414.4 crore in the third quarter against a loss of Rs 3,222.3 crore a year ago. The loss was on account of an exceptional charge of Rs 4,276.4 crore on account of impairment of investment in a joint venture of the company.
Despite the devaluation of African currencies during the period, the consolidated revenue from operations during the third quarter of the ongoing fiscal grew 5.8 per cent to Rs 37,899.5 crore from Rs 35,804.4 crore in the year-ago period.
“Revenue from India business sustained its momentum and grew sequentially by 3 per cent, while consolidated revenue was impacted by the devaluation of the Nigerian Naira and Malawian Kwacha,” Vittal said in a statement.
The total customer base grew about 8 per cent on a year-on-year basis to 55.1 crore in the December quarter, with Indian subscribers growing to 39.7 crore, up 7.5 per cent.
Average revenue per user (ARPU) — a key parameter of a telecom company’s performance — in the country increased 7.7 per cent to Rs 208 from Rs 193 a year ago.
“We remain on course with our strategy of premiumisation that helped us add 7.4 million 4G/5G customers and exit the quarter with an industry-leading ARPU of Rs 208. Even at this ARPU, our return on capital employed continues to be low at 9.4 per cent. To ensure industry health, tariff repair is extremely critical,” Vittal said.
The company said it added 2.82 crore 4G/5G data customers to its network over the last year and its average data usage per data customer stood at 22GB per month.
In India, Airtel’s 4G and 5G customer base increased 13 per cent on a year-on-year basis and 3.1 per cent on a quarter-on-quarter basis to 24.49 crore, accounting for 73.3 per cent of its total customer base.
Services sector at 6-mth high
New Delhi: Services sector activity in India rose to a six-month high in January as new business expanded at a faster pace amid buoyant demand from domestic and external clients, a monthly survey said.
The seasonally adjusted HSBC India Services PMI Business Activity Index rose to 61.8 in January, up from 59 in December, pointing to the sharpest rate of expansion in six months.
In Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) parlance, a print above 50 means expansion while a score below 50 denotes contraction.
“India’s services PMI rose to a six-month high in January. New business expanded at a faster pace and managers’ expectations for future activity was strong. The new export business index accelerated, signalling that services exports remained robust,” Ines Lam, economist at HSBC, said.
New export sales rose at the fastest pace in three months.
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