Bharti Airtel’s consolidated revenues for Q1 FY22 stood at Rs 268.54 billion, registering a growth of 21.2 per cent year on year (YoY). Meanwhile, the telco reported a net profit of Rs 2.84 billion during quarter ended (QE) June 2021 from a loss of Rs 159.33 billion a year ago.
Consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) witnessed an increase of 30.3 per cent YoY to Rs 131.89 billion in Q1 FY22. EBITDA expansion was broad based across the portfolio and the portfolio remains very well balanced with India non-mobile and Africa business contributing 17.6 per cent and 29.5 per cent respectively and India mobile contributing 53.0 per cent. This led to an improvement in EBITDA margin from 43.4 per cent in Q1 FY21 to 49.1 per cent in Q1 FY22. Incremental EBITDA margins across businesses remained healthy, with India mobile services EBITDA improving from 40.6 per cent in Q1FY 21 to 49.2 per cent in Q1FY 22. Consolidated EBIT increased by 84.5 per cent YoY to Rs 54.37 billion. The consolidated net income before exceptional items for the quarter stands at Rs 2.66 billion.
The consolidated mobile data traffic at 10,439 PBs in the quarter with a healthy YoY growth of 48.7 per cent.
Airtel’s India revenues for Q1FY 22 at Rs 188.28 billion increased by 19.2 per cent YoY on a comparable basis and 11.1 per cent YoY on a reported basis. Mobile revenues grew by 21.9 per cent YoY on comparable basis on account of the improved realizations as well as strong 4G customer addition. ARPU for the quarter came in at Rs 146 as compared to Rs 138 in Q1FY 21, an outcome of our focus on acquiring quality customers as well as secular upgrading of customers to data. The company continues to garner a strong share of the 4G net adds in the market. 4G data customers2 increased by 33.4 per cent YoY to 184.4 million compared to the previous year. Over the last 4 quarters, the company has added ~ 46 million 4G customers to its network. ARPU continues to be the best in industry – average data usage per data customer at 18.5 GBs/month; while voice usage was at 1,044 mins/customer/month.
Homes business segment witnessed a revenue growth of 12.9 per cent YoY with highest ever customer additions of ~ 285 K during the quarter to reach to a total base of 3.35 million. Expansion to non-wired cities through LCO model is accelerating fast. Airtel is now live in more than 300 cities through this model, with overall operations in 387 cities. The Digital services offerings of Airtel continue to see growth. MAUs reached to over 187 million across our key digital assets – Thanks, Wynk, Xstream. There are over 1.2 million retailers transacting and making payments every day on Mitra App. Company continues to witness accelerated adoption and scaling up of its cloud communication & adtech platforms with new customer onboarding.
In a statement, Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia, Bharti Airtel, said, “India is now recovering from the devastating second wave of Covid-19. I am enormously grateful to our teams who have lived the spirit of service in these difficult times and continued to serve the nation by keeping our customers connected. Our consolidated revenues at Rs 268.54 billion grew by Rs 11.06 billion over the last quarter representing a sequential growth of 4.3 percent while EBITDA margins improved from 48.9 per cent to 49.1 per cent. While our wireless revenue was impacted by the Covid lockdown induced slowdown in terms of device shipments and a financial squeeze at the lower end of the market, our overall performance reflected the resilience and strength of our portfolio. We added ~ 5.1 million 4G customers during the quarter and our enterprise business in India continued to deliver strongly. Our Homes business grew by just about 13 percent over last year and added 285K customers in the quarter, the highest ever. We continue to invest in the best of emerging technologies, including networks and digital capabilities.”
