Comments
Bharti Airtel (Airtel) on Tuesday reported a consolidated net profit of ₹3,006 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, a jump of 50 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) as compared with ₹2,008 crore in the corresponding period last year.
Total revenues were also up 14.3 per cent y-o-y to ₹36,009 crore during the January-March quarter as against ₹31,500 in the same period in FY22 , the company said.
The company said 4G data customers were up by 23.3 million y-o-y and mobile average revenue per user (ARPU) increased to ₹193 in the fourth quarter of FY23 as compared with ₹178 in the same period in FY22.
Its rival, Reliance Jio reported an APRU of ₹178.8 during the March 2023 quarter.
Dividend
Airtel also said the Board recommended a final dividend of ₹4 per fully paid-up equity share of face value ₹5 each and ₹1 per partly paid-up equity share of face value ₹5 each (paid-up ₹1.25 per share) for the FY23.
The dividend is in proportion to the amount paid-up on each equity share of face value ₹5 each.
“This has been another strong quarter as we end the fiscal year having further strengthened our portfolio. Our consolidated revenue grew sequentially by 0.6 per cent, while EBITDA margin expanded to 52.2 per cent despite there being two fewer days in the quarter,” Gopal Vittal, Managing Director, Airtel, said.
Acquiring quality customers
He said the company’s focus on acquiring quality customers has resulted in 7.4 million new 4G customers, as exits the quarter with an industry leading ARPU of ₹193.
“A simple strategy and our relentless focus on execution has ensured that we close the year with market share gains across all businesses. We are also pleased to see the increased velocity of our digital deliveries across all parts of our business. This has been due to our sustained focus on digital platforms and talent. We continue to ramp up our 5G roll out and expect to connect all major towns and key villages by the end of this year,” Vittal added.
Airtel India Mobile services revenue during the reported quarter grew 12 per cent y-o-y to ₹19,549.3 crore from ₹17,526.2 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.
The annual revenue of the mobile services business in India also grew by 21 per cent y-o-y to ₹5,924.6 crore in FY23 from ₹62,915.1 crore in FY22.
For the year ended on March 31, Airtel’s net profit almost doubled to ₹8,346 crore from ₹4,255 crore a year ago.
The consolidated revenue from operations of Airtel for 2022-23 increased by 19.3 per cent to ₹1,39,144.8 crore from ₹1,16,546.9 crore at the end of 2021-22.
Capital expenditure
The company’s capital expenditure in India more than doubled to ₹8,989.4 crore in the January-March quarter in FY23 from ₹4,276.7 crore a year ago, it said.
The majority of the capex of ₹6,647.1 crore was deployed in the mobile business as the company continues to build up a pan-India 5G network, it added.
Airtels’ total customer base increased to 51.84 crore in March 2023 quarter from 48.97 crore a year ago. Its customer base in India grew 4.7 per cent to 37.53 crore during the reported quarter from 35.83 crore in the same quarter last year. The company reported 11.6 per cent increase in 4G customer base to 22.41 crore from 20.84 crore in March 2022 quarter.
Shares of Airtel closed at ₹787.85 apiece on the BSE on Tuesday, down 1.27 per cent from the previous close.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.