Bharti Airtel's Q1 profit jumps multi-fold to Rs 1,607 crore

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Monday posted an over five-fold jump in its consolidated profit to Rs 1,607 crore for the quarter ended June 2022, mainly on account of hike in tariffs.

The company had posted a profit of Rs 283.5 crore in the same period a year ago.

Consolidated revenue from operations of Bharti Airtel increased by about 22 per cent to Rs 32,805 crore during the reported quarter from Rs 26,854 crore earlier.

Bharti Airtel India's revenue increased by 24 per cent to Rs 23,319 crore, compared to Rs 18,828.4 crore in Q1 FY22.

The mobile services revenue of Bharti Airtel in India grew 27 per cent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis to Rs 18,220 crore from Rs 14,305.6 crore.

Also Read | Adani Ports Q1 net profit drops 17% to Rs 1,091.56 cr

Bharti Airtel's total customer base grew by 4.7 per cent on YoY basis to 49.69 crore, with India accounting for 36.24 crore subscribers.

"Our enterprise and homes business has strong momentum and delivered strong double digit growth, improving the diversity of the overall portfolio. Airtel's strategy of winning with quality customers continues to yield good results with an industry beating ARPU at Rs 183.

"As India gets ready to launch 5G, we are well positioned to raise the bar on innovation," Bharti Airtel MD and CEO Gopal Vittal said in a statement.

The hike in mobile service tariffs during the reported quarter led to an increase of 25.4 per cent in average revenue per user (ARPU) of Bharti Airtel in India to Rs 183 from Rs 146 a year ago.

Its 4G customer base in India accounted for 65.2 per cent of the total customer base and grew by 11.3 per cent YoY to 20.52 crore from 18.44 crore in the June 2021 quarter.

"We continue to garner a strong share of the 4G customers in the market and added 20.8 Mn 4G customers to its network over last year, an increase of 11.3 per cent YoY. ARPU continues to be the best in the industry, average data usage per mobile data customer at 19.5 GBs per month and voice usage per customer at 1,104 minutes per month," the statement said.

Revenue from the home services division, which comprises fixed broadband services, grew 42 per cent to Rs 926.5 crore in the reported first quarter from Rs 653.1 crore earlier.

Airtel Business segment revenues increased by 15.2 per cent to Rs 4,366 crore from Rs 3,789.3 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

Also Read | Rupee falls 40 paise, closes at 79.64 against US dollar

Bharti Airtel Africa's revenue grew by about 15 per cent in constant currency terms to $1,270 million (about Rs 10,098 crore) from $1,102 million earlier.

South Asia revenue declined by 30 per cent to Rs 66.7 crore from Rs 95.2 crore.

The company made capital expenditure of Rs 5,288 crore in India and Rs 1,088 crore in Africa.

In the recently concluded spectrum auctions, Airtel acquired 19,867.8 MHz spectrum by securing a pan-India footprint of 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands and select purchase of radiowaves in low and mid-band spectrum for a total consideration of Rs 43,040 crore.

The consolidated net debt excluding lease obligations for the company stands at Rs 1,19,509 crore as on June 30, 2022, compared to Rs 1,26,511.7 crore as on June 30, 2021.