BENGALURU:
Bharti Airtel, India’s second-biggest telecom operator, on Monday reported a 22.2% increase in quarterly revenue, boosted by subscriber additions, and an over five-fold rise in its consolidated profit to Rs 1,607 crore for the first quarter ended June 30.
The company’s consolidated revenue from operations rose to Rs 32,805 crore ($4.12 billion) for the quarter ended June 30, from Rs 26,854 crore in the same period last year, according to a regulatory filing.
Airtel’s profit jumped multi-fold to Rs 1,607 crore. The company had posted a profit of Rs 283.5 crore in the year-ago period.
Its consolidated revenue from operations increased by about 22 per cent to Rs 32,805 crore during the reported quarter from Rs 26,854 crore a year ago.
The company’s revenue rose 24 per cent to Rs 23,319 crore in June 2022 quarter from Rs 18,828.4 crore in the year-ago quarter.
Bharti Airtel’s mobile services revenue in India grew 27 per cent year-on-year to Rs 18,220 crore for the first quarter from Rs 14,305.6 crore.
Reuters reported that average revenue per user (ARPU)– a key performance indicator in the telecom industry – came in at 183 rupees ($2.30) for the quarter, up from 146 rupees from a year earlier. ARPU of rivals Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea for the same period was 175.7 rupees and 128 rupees, respectively.
Analysts expected first-quarter ARPU to be boosted by a residual impact of tariff increase done late last year.
Airtel said mobile data consumption surged by 16.6% from a year ago, with consumption per mobile data customer at 19.5 GB per month.
The company said in November, when it announced tariff hikes, that mobile ARPU needed to be at 200 rupees and ultimately at 300 rupees, for a financially healthy business model.
The company has been raising money to fund its digital ambitions, including developing home broadband, data centres, cloud adoption as it prepares to launch its next-generation 5G services in the country.
Airtel last week won 5G spectrum worth $5.4 billion in the country’s $19 billion auction. The government aims to begin the rollout of 5G – which it says can provide data speeds about 10 times faster than 4G – by October this year.