Bharti Airtel Q3 results: Net profit falls 2.8% YoY to Rs 830 cr, ARPU rises Rs 163

Telecom major Bharti Airtel Ltd on Tuesday reported a 2.8 per cent fall in its consolidated net profit at Rs 830 crore in the quarter ending 31 December, 2021. The telco had reported a net profit of Rs 854 crore in the year-ago period.

Airtel's third-quarter revenue, however, jumped 12.6 per cent to Rs 29,867 crore helped by recent tariff hikes and subscriber additions as against Rs 26,518 crore a year ago. 

The telco stated that its average revenue per user (ARPU) increased to Rs 163 in Q3FY22 as against Rs 146 in Q3FY21 on comparable basis, while mobile services revenues up 19.1 per cent YoY on comparable basis.

Consolidated EBITDA witnessed an increase of 22.4 per cent YoY to Rs 14,905 crore in Q3FY22. "EBITDA expansion was broad based and the portfolio remains well balanced with India non-mobile and Africa business contributing 17 per cent and 30.1 per cent respectively and India mobile contributing 52.9 per cent," the company stated. 

Its quarterly consolidated EBIDTA margin came at 49.9 per cent in quarter under review.

Bharti Airtel also added that full impact of revised mobile tariffs will be visible in the fourth quarter of the current fiscal.

Moreover, the company continues to garner strong share of the 4G customers in the market, the telco stated, adding that 4G data customers increased by 18.1 per cent YoY to 195.5 million. 

The company has added 29.9 million 4G customers to its network over last year. "ARPU continues to be the best in industry, average data usage per data customer at 18.3 GBs/month and voice usage per customer at 1,061 mins /month," it further stated.

Revenue of Digital TV remained stable and continued to perpetuate its standing with 18.1 million customer base at the end of quarter. "We continue to make progress through innovative propositions and differential converged experience to accelerate the business growth," Bharti Airtel said.

The Digital services offerings of Airtel continue to remain robust with a healthy engaged customer base of over 184 milluon MAUs across our key digital assets – Thanks, Wynk, Xstream it added. There are over 1.2 million retailers transacting and making payments every day on Mitra App. 

Further, during the quarter, Airtel Payments Bank continued to expand its footing with a strong total customer base of over 122 million and highly engaged Monthly Transacting Users (MTU) base of over 32 million.

Commenting on the quarterly results, Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia, said, "...The full impact of the revised mobile tariffs, however, will be visible in the fourth quarter. Our Enterprise, Homes and Africa business continue to deliver strongly, with steady increase in contribution to the overall mix of the portfolio. Our balance sheet is robust and we are now generating healthy free cash flows. This has enabled us to recently prepay some of our spectrum liabilities to the Government thereby reducing the interest burden."

On Google's recent investment in the telco, Vittal added, "Google’s recent investment is a strong validation of Airtel’s role in being a leading pioneer of India’s digital revolution. Our emerging digital services portfolio across Airtel IQ, AdTech, digital market place, Nxtra and digital banking positions us well to build an Airtel of the future.”

Shares of Bharti Airtel closed 0.33 per cent higher at Rs 708.85 apiece on BSE today.