Bharti Airtel has announced its audited consolidated financial results for the third quarter ended (QE) December 31, 2024. The company’s total revenue stood at Rs 451.29 billion for (Q3) financial year 2024-25 (FY25) as compared to Rs 379 billion during the same period last year, showing a 19.1 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth. This growth was driven by strong momentum in India and continued underlying growth in constant currency in Africa. Q3 FY25 also had partial impact of Indus Towers consolidation for 43 days.
Meanwhile, the company’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) stood at Rs 248.80 billion as compared to Rs 200.44 billion, while the EBITDA margins were 55.1 per cent against 52.9 per cent for the reported period. The company’s profit before tax (PBT) were Rs 93.46 billion against Rs 42.39 billion, showing a 120.5 per cent YoY growth.
Further, telco’s net income before exceptional items for the reported period was Rs 55.14 billion against Rs 24.92 billion, resigtering a 121.3 per cent YoY growth. This quarter had seen exceptional items primarily due to consolidation of Indus Towers
Commenting on the results, Gopal Vittal, vice-chairman and managing director (MD), said, “We delivered another consistent quarter with consolidated revenue of Rs 451.29 billion. Indus Towers consolidation is effective this quarter. India revenue (excluding Indus) grew by 4.8 per cent sequentially. Africa maintained strong constant currency sequential growth trajectory of 5.6 per cent. India mobile delivered strong performance led by residual flow-through of tariff repair and underlying levers of premiumisation. We reported another quarter of industry leading average revenue per user (ARPU) growth to reach Rs 245. We added 6.5 million smartphone users underpinned by our focus on acquiring quality customers and portfolio premiumisation. Homes business saw further step up in customer additions with acceleration of fixed wireless access (FWA) expansion. Airtel Business delivered stable performance but continues to remain challenged. We are in the middle of comprehensive re-tooling of our Airtel Business portfolio by stepping-up investments in digital services across cloud, security and internet of thing (IoT) while shedding very low margin commodity voice and wholesale business. This is likely to impact the top line of this business in the coming quarters but will have an insignificant impact on the margins. Our balance sheet remains solid, supported by robust cash generation, prudent capital allocation and continued deleveraging. During the quarter, we prepaid another tranche of Rs 36.26 billion of high-cost spectrum dues. At the same time, we believe the industry needs further tariff repair to ensure sustained investments and long-term value creation.”
