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Bharti Airtel’s focus in the September quarter seems to have been the improvement of the quality of its subscriber base.
The quarter was characterised by stability in realisations in its mobile business, while the tower and DTH segments experienced significantly better traction.
The company’s revenues in the September quarter increased 17.4 per cent over the same period last year to Rs 20,273.2 crore. But net profits fell 29.8 per cent to Rs 721.2 crore as tax outflows rose 57.4 per cent.
Bharti witnessed a reduction of 1.38 million in its subscriber base in the quarter as against the trend of 3-6 million customer additions over the past several quarters.
This may have been a deliberate strategy to weed out non-lucrative customers and improve the quality of its subscriber base.
The increase in proportion of active subscribers (those that recharge and use the services regularly) to 91.5 per cent attests to this.
The realisation per minute has remained stable at 42.6 paisa.
Bharti’s African mobile business, though, witnessed slippages in ARPU and realisations, as the company is still in the process of increasing footprint in that geography.
Tower business healthy
Bharti’s tower business (including its stake in Indus Towers) continues to see increase in tenancy. The sharing factor, now at 1.91, may touch the desirable rate of 2 in the next few quarters.
The monthly rentals per tower too have increased to Rs 34,449.
The company’s DTH business too had a good quarter with ARPUs increasing from Rs 161 last year to Rs 177 currently. Subscriber additions though were a tad slow. But with the government mandating digitisation across metros from November, there may be good scope for the company to acquire new subscribers.
Although the company’s net debt remains high at Rs 66,760 crore, an interest coverage ratio of 6.4 places it in a fairly comfortable position to service the debt.
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