Bharti Airtel Q3 Results: Profit Meets Estimates, ARPU At Rs 208
The telecom operator clocked an average revenue per user of Rs 208 in Q3, as compared with Rs 203 in the quarter ended September.
Bharti Airtel Ltd.'s third-quarter profit rose, meeting analysts' estimates.
The country's second largest telecom company's net profit increased 37.41% sequentially to Rs 2,876.4 crore in the quarter ended December 2023, according to an exchange filing on Monday. That compares with a Bloomberg consensus estimate of Rs 2,855 crore.
Airtel Q3 FY24 Earnings Highlights (QoQ)
Revenue up 2.3% to Rs 37,899.5 crore (Bloomberg estimate: Rs 38,338.1 crore).
Operating profit up 1.54% at Rs 19,814.8 crore (Bloomberg estimate: Rs 20,000 crore).
Margin at 52.28% vs 52.67%
Average revenue per user, or ARPU, rose to Rs 208 vs Rs 203.
The company reported an exceptional loss of Rs 130.2 crore on account of foreign exchange loss for currency devaluation in its group subsidiaries.
In the previous quarter, the company created an additional tax provision for Rs 226.3 crore, following a Supreme Court ruling that held that licence fee paid at regular intervals should be classified as capital expenditure.
The interest of Rs 1,350 crore on the above was considered as an exceptional loss in the income statement.
ARPU rose driven by consistent strategy of acquiring high value customers and improved realisations.
"Revenue from India business sustained its momentum and grew sequentially by 3%, while the consolidated revenue was impacted by the devaluation of the Nigerian Naira and Malawian Kwacha," Gopal Vittal, managing director at Bharti Airtel, said in a statement.
The quarter witnessed a strong growth trajectory for the postpaid and homes business, while the DTH business added 3,88,000 net adds–the highest in the last 12 quarters, he said.
Mobile revenue grew by 11.8% year-on-year on account of improved realisation as well as strong 4G/5G customer additions during the year, it said.
"Even at this ARPU, our return on capital employed however, continues to be low at 9.4%. To ensure industry health, tariff repair is extremely critical,"
Bharti Airtel's India customer base stands at 55.11 crore subscribers across 16 countries, up 2% from the quarter ended September. India's customer base rose 7.5% year-on-year to 40 crore.
The capex for India for the quarter stood at Rs 775.6 crore.
Shares of Bharti Airtel closed 3.25% lower at Rs 1,113.10 apiece, as compared with a 0.49% decline in the benchmark BSE Sensex on Monday.
