Bharti Airtel Posts Strong Revenue Growth in Second Quarter on Adding Users

Mumbai: India’s 2nd biggest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel Ltd carrier by subscribers, reported a bigger-than-expected increase in second-quarter revenue on Monday, helped by 4G subscriber additions and higher revenue per user.

The company’s total revenue from operations rose nearly 22% year-over-year to 345.27 billion Indian rupees in the three months that ended Sept. 30.

According to Refinitiv IBES data on average analysts were expecting revenue of 339.21 billion rupees. Airtel, as the company is popularly called, revealed the revenue from its India mobile services, which has 328 million subscribers, rose nearly 25% to 189.58 billion rupees. The company’s 4G data customers increased by 5 million from the previous quarter to 210 million in the latest quarter.

Airtel’s average revenue per user (ARPU), a key performance indicator for telecom firms, was 190 rupees, clocking a 3.8% sequential rise and a roughly 24% year-on-year increase. The telecom arm of conglomerate Reliance Industries, the telecom market leader Reliance Jio said earlier this month its ARPU rose just under 1% sequentially to 177.2 rupees in the quarter.

Airtel’s net profit for the September quarter rose to 21.45 billion rupees from 11.34 billion rupees a year ago but missed analysts’ estimates of 24.67 billion rupees. Its expenses surged by 16.7% in the quarter. The New Delhi-based company said mobile data consumption surged by 19.6%, with consumption per mobile data customer at 20.3 GB per month.

Analysts expect telecom firms to announce tariff hikes by the end of the fiscal year 2023, having spent billions of dollars in the country’s recent 5G auction. Airtel spent 430.84 billion rupees and launched its 5G services earlier this month. Last November, when the company raised tariffs, it said ARPU needs to be at 200 rupees and ultimately at 300 rupees for a financially healthy business model.

Today the company’s stock price hit a record high of 833.80 rupees earlier in the day and has risen nearly 22% this year through Monday’s close.