Bharti Airtel has announced its audited consolidated financial results for the fourth quarter ended (QE) March 31, 2024. The consolidated revenues for the reported quarter stood at Rs 375.99 billion – up 4.4 per cent year-on-year (YoY), impacted by devaluation of African currencies during the period, particularly Nigerian Naira. Meanwhile, consolidated mobile data traffic stood at 17,702 PBs in the quarter with a healthy YoY growth of 26.2 per cent.
Consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) witnessed an increase of 4.2 per cent YoY to Rs 195.9 billion in the fourth quarter (Q4) of the fiscal year 2023-24 (FY24), while EBITDA margin is 52.1 per cent in Q4 FY24 as compare to 52.2 per cent in Q4 FY23.
The company’s consolidated net income (before exceptional items) at Rs 29.52 billion, while the consolidated net income (after exceptional items) stood at Rs 20.72 billion.
With regard to its India business, the telco’s revenues for the reported quarter stood at Rs 285.13 billion – up 12.9 per cent YoY. Mobile services revenues grew by 12.9 per cent YoY, on account of improved realisation as well as strong 4G/5G customer additions during the year. In addition, EBITDA margins across businesses remained healthy, with India EBITDA margins improving from 53.1 per cent in Q4 FY23 to 53.6 per cent in Q4 FY24. In addition, average revenue per user (ARPU) for the quarter stood at Rs 209 as compared to Rs 193 in Q4 FY23 driven by sustained focus on acquiring quality customers and mix improvement.
Airtel strengthened its leadership position in postpaid segment with net adds of 0.8 million in Q4 FY24 thereby reaching a customer base of 51.2 million, including internet of things (IoT). It continued to garner strong share of the 4G/5G customers in the market and added 28.6 million 4G/5G data customers to its network over last year, an increase of 12.8 per cent YoY.
Commenting on the results, Gopal Vittal, managing director, Airtel, said, “We ended the year on a strong note with consistent performance across all businesses, both on customer metrics as well as financial parameters. India revenue (adjusted for Beetel) grew by 1.7 per cent with EBITDA margin expanding to 54.1 per cent, despite one day less in the quarter. Consolidated performance was impacted primarily by the devaluation of the Nigerian Naira. We added 7.8 million smart phone customers and delivered an industry leading ARPU of Rs 209. Our relentless focus on improving customer experience has resulted in 20 per cent churn reduction during the quarter. Our simple and clear strategy coupled with razor-sharp focus on execution enabled us to end the quarter with life-time high market share across all businesses. Our efforts on digitising Airtel are now gathering velocity and is being visibly felt across all parts of our operations. At the same time, our return on capital employed continues to remain low due to the absence of tariff repair in the industry.”
