Bharti Airtel Q4 Results: Profit Surges Over 60%, ARPU Flat

Bharti Airtel Ltd. has reported higher-than-expected profit in the March quarter, even as earnings from each user stagnated.

As on March 31, Bharti Airtel had 335.4 million customers, who spoke over the phone for a total of 1,124 billion minutes, pinging a total of 2,75,069 network towers. The 4G subscriber base stood at 224.1 million, who consumed data to the tune of 14,248 billion megabytes. 

The average mobile data usage per customer rose 8.0% year-on-year to 20.3 GB per month. Mobile revenue for the quarter stood at Rs 195.49 crore, up 11.5% year-on-year.

“We strengthened our leadership position in the postpaid segment with a customer base of 35.6 million (including IoT). We continue to garner a strong share of the 4G customers in the market and added 23.3 million 4G data customers to our network over last year,” according to the statement.

Bharti Airtel, in the notes to the financial statement, brought up the issue of Vodafone Idea Ltd.'s pending dues to Indus Towers Ltd.—the joint venture of the telecom operators and Bharti Infratel Ltd.

"The said customer had been informed that a funding plan was under discussion and had agreed to a payment plan till December 2022 and 100% of the amounts billed from January 2023 onwards," Bharti Airtel said in the notes, without explicitly naming the debt-laden company.

"As regards the dues outstanding as of Dec. 31, 2022, it had agreed to pay the dues between January 2023 and July 2023. However, during the current quarter, the funding plan of the said customer did not materialise and the said customer has indicated challenges in making the payments pertaining to the outstanding amount due as of Dec. 31, 2022."

Bharti Airtel allocated $748 million towards capital expenditure in the fiscal ended March 31 to acquire additional spectrum in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Kenya. That was reflected in Airtel Africa Plc’s earnings for the fiscal.

• Revenue grew 17.6% in constant currency terms to $5,225 million.

• Ebitda rose 17.3% in constant currency terms to $2,575 million.

• Ebitda margin in FY23 stood at 49%.

• Net profit dipped marginally to $750 million.

The company, which at present has operations in 14 African countries, grew its subscriber base by 9% to 140 million in FY23, on the back of a 16.9% increase in mobile data users to 54.6 million. The mobile money user base grew by 20.4% to 31.5 million.

On Tuesday, shares of Bharti Airtel fell 1.27% to Rs 787.85 apiece on the BSE, even as the benchmark Sensex ended the day 0.66% lower at 61,932.47 points. The quarterly results were declared after market hours.