Bharti Airtel Q1 Net Profit Flat At Rs 1,612 Cr, Revenue Up 14%

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Thursday posted a net profit of Rs 1,612 crore for the first quarter ended June 2023, which is nearly flat over earnings in the same period of the previous year.
    
The revenue for the just-ended quarter was 14 per cent higher at Rs 37,440 crore compared to the year-ago period "backed by strong and consistent performance delivery across the portfolio", the company said.
    
"We have delivered yet another quarter of strong and competitive growth across all our businesses...Our focus on winning quality customers and driving premiumisation has helped us add 5.6 million new 4G customers and the highest ever postpaid customers in any one quarter," managing director Gopal Vittal said in a statement.
    
Mobile services India revenues were up 12.4 per cent year on year led by continued strong 4G customer additions and an increase in Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).
    
After accounting for loss of Rs 1289.6 crore towards exceptional items (primarily currency devaluation in Nigeria), the net income for the quarter ended June 30, 2023 came in at Rs 1612.5 crore, which was 0.3 per cent higher than the corresponding period of the previous year. 
    
The consolidated net income (before exceptional items) stood at Rs 2,902 crore, up by 91.3 per cent year on year.
    
The company said that Mobile ARPU (a key metric for telecom operators) increased to Rs 200 in the first quarter of FY24 against Rs 183 in April-June FY23.
    
The company launched 5G services last year but continues to garner a "strong share" of 4G customers in the market. 
    
The company said it added 24.5 million 4G data customers to the network over 2022, an increase of 11.9 per cent on-year.
    
Airtel added 8 lakh customers to its Postpaid services, making it the "highest-ever" net addition for the company in Q1’24. 
    
Airtel business became India’s first enterprise to power over 2 crore connected devices, the company said.
    
"We rolled out about 9200 towers in the quarter to further strengthen our network coverage and provide seamless connectivity...added about 38600 towers YoY," it added.
    
Airtel's Homes business delivered revenue growth of 25.4 per cent on-year on the back of growing demand for high-speed and reliable broadband in India.
    
The telecom giant added over 4 lakh customers during the quarter, taking their base to 65 lakh.
    
"We continue to accelerate our rollouts on the back of innovative asset-light local cable operator partnership model, we are now live in 1225 cities," Airtel said on its cable service.
    
Airtel Digital TV consolidated over 1 crore customers at the end of the quarter on the back of market-specific strategy and simplified pricing along with its convergence portfolio.
    
"We have been scaling our digital capabilities to deliver best-in-class experience and offering differentiated digital services to our customers. We have a robust customer base of more than 200 million monthly active users across our key digital assets – Thanks, Xstream and Wynk," the company said.