Bharti Airtel Q3 Results: Profit Jumps Over Fourfold On Exceptional Gain

Bharti Airtel Ltd.'s consolidated net profit surged over fourfold sequentially in the third quarter of the current financial year, beating analysts' estimates.

The telecom giant reported a net profit of Rs 14,781.2 crore during the October–December period, compared to Rs 3,593.2 crore in the previous quarter, according to an exchange filing on Thursday. Analysts tracked by Bloomberg had a consensus estimate of Rs 5,023 crore.

The increase in profit before tax can be attributed to a net exceptional item amounting to Rs 7,545.6 crore.

• Revenue up 8.8% to Rs 45,129.3 crore versus Rs 41,473.30 crore. (Bloomberg estimate: Rs 43,955 crore).

• Ebitda up 13% to Rs 24,597 crore versus Rs 21,846 crore (Estimate: Rs 23,743 crore).

• Margin expands to 54.5% versus 52.7% (Estimate: 54%).

• Net profit at Rs 14,781.2 crore versus Rs 3,593.2 crore.

• Average revenue per user rose to Rs 245 versus Rs 233.

• India mobile services revenue up 5.8% to Rs 26,268 crore versus Rs 24,837 crore (Estimate: Rs 26,229 crore)

• India mobile services Ebitda up 9.1% to Rs 15,456 crore versus Rs 14,171 crore (Estimate: Rs 15,443 crore)

During the quarter, Airtel rolled out about 5,200 towers and about 16,300 mobile broadband stations to expand its network footprint and enhance customer experience across the country. Airtel's anti-spam tool brought significant relief as it notified close to 25 crore unique customers to combat the spam menace.

Airtel accelerated its fixed wireless access expansion, which led to an uptick of about 6.5 lakh new customers to reach a total base of 92 lakh. In addition, the telecom giant prepaid Rs 3,626 crore towards deferred liabilities pertaining to spectrum acquired in 2016. With this, Airtel has now prepaid all its spectrum dues that had interest costs higher than 8.65%.

"Our balance sheet remains solid, supported by robust cash generation, prudent capital allocation, and continued deleveraging," Managing Director Gopal Vittal said. "We believe the industry needs further tariff repair to ensure sustained investment and long-term value creation."

Furthering its mission to build future-ready data centre infrastructure, Nxtra by Airtel has deployed artificial intelligence in its data centres to drive "operational excellence." With this, Nxtra becomes the first data centre in India to leverage AI to build new-age digitised facilities engineered to drive smart capabilities like predictive maintenance, enhanced operational and energy efficiency, streamlined automation of operations and optimised capex utilisation.