Bharti Airtel (Airtel) on Monday reported a consolidated net profit of ₹759 crore for the fourth quarter ended March, 114 per cent up, compared to a net loss of ₹5,237 crore in the corresponding period last year.
Revenues of the Sunil Bharti Mittal-owned company grew by 12 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to ₹25,747 crore for the period in review, as against ₹ 23,019 crore in the January-March quarter last year.
India revenue is also up 17.5 per cent YoY at ₹18,338 crore on a comparable basis, the company said in a statement adding that the Mobile revenue grew by 19 per cent YoY on a comparable basis on account of the improved realisations as well as strong customer addition.
The average revenue per user (ARPU) continues to be best in industry at ₹145 during the fourth quarter versus ₹35 in the same period last year, an outcome of the company’s focus on acquiring quality customers and up-trading and up-gradation of customers to 4G.
The company continues to garner a strong share of the 4G net additions in the market, and the 4G data customers increased by 31.5 per cent YoY to 179.3 million, an addition of around 43 million 4G customers over the last four quarters.
The average data usage per data customer was at 16.4 GBs/month, while voice usage was at 1,053 minutes/customer/month, the company said.
The company continues to see substantial traction in its post-paid business also and added 6,30,000 post-paid customers this quarter and around 1.9 million over the last four quarters.
“Our services are the digital oxygen that the country needs in this challenging time as we experience a vicious second wave of Covid-19. I am grateful to our people who are doing all they can to strengthen our network experience and serve our customers, braving massive odds. It is this relentless focus on customer obsession that has allowed us to deliver another consistent quarter,” Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, India and South Asia, said.
Airtel also rolled out additional 8,300 towers in the quarter, to further expand and strengthen network coverage, and fortified its strong spectrum portfolio with the acquisition of 355.45 MHz spectrum across Sub GHz, mid-band and 2300 MHz bands for ₹18,699 crore (on bid value) in the latest spectrum auctions.
With this, Airtel has secured pan India foot-print of sub GHz spectrum that will help improve its deep indoor and in building coverage in every urban town, the company mentioned.
Several initiatives have also been undertaken to improve network quality – leveraging digital tools/probes to monitor and improve customer experience, scaling up Vo-Wi-Fi adoption to improve indoor experience. The company now has over 23 million customers using its Vo-Wi-Fi services, it added.