Airtel, with 362 million customers, reported a 26% rise in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (Ebitda) from the year ago to ₹16,604 crore. Its margins expanded by 1.5 percentage points to 50.6% during the quarter.
The Sunil Bharti Mittal-promoted company’s average revenue per user (APRU), a key measure of profitability, was ₹183, up 25.4% from ₹146 in the year-ago period and 2.8% from ₹178 in the March quarter, as a result of acquiring and retaining quality customers. It has the highest APRU among peers.
Revenue from its India business rose 24% from the year ago to ₹23,319 crore, while mobile revenues rose 27% to ₹18,220 crore from ₹14,305 crore in the year-ago period, because of the increase in ARPU and strong 4G customer additions.
“It has been another solid quarter. We continue to deliver strong and sustained growth at 4.5% sequentially. Ebitda margins are now 50.6%. Our enterprise and homes business has strong momentum and has delivered strong double-digit growth, improving the diversity of the overall portfolio. Airtel’s strategy of winning quality customers continues to yield good results with an industry beating ARPU of ₹183," said Gopal Vittal, managing director and chief executive officer, Airtel.
The carrier added 20.8 million 4G customers over the last year, up 11.3% year-on-year, while average data usage per mobile data customer rose to 19.5 GBs per month and voice usage per customer rose to 1,104 mins per month.
The company added 8,000 towers in the quarter and scaled up voice over Wi-Fi adoption to improve the indoor experience for its subscribers. “We have 44 million customers using our wi-fi services," the company said.
Airtel will start 5G services in key cities before expanding across the country on the back of “industry best existing pool of spectrum". “Our long-term spectrum acquisition strategy has ensured we are able to offer the best-in-class 5G experience at the lowest cost of ownership with the most power-efficient solutions," it said.
Airtel will not need to spend on spectrum “for many years" after it acquired 19,867.8 MHz airwaves in the 3.5 GHz, 26 GHz bands, and low and mid-band spectrum, for ₹43,034 crore. It has kept away from the high cost 700 MHz spectrum.
“As India gets ready to launch 5G, we are well positioned to raise the bar on innovation. We are confident of meeting emerging needs of discerning customers looking for speed, coverage, and latency," Vittal added.
The company’s net debt increased marginally to ₹1.67 trillion in the June quarter from ₹1.59 trillion in the corresponding quarter of last fiscal.
Airtel’s free cash flow was more than ₹10,200 crore on a consolidated basis for the quarter, rising from ₹6,598 crore in the June 2021 quarter. Its capex was at ₹6,398 crore, down from ₹6,590 crore in the same quarter of FY22.
Finance costs rose on a consolidated basis to ₹4,384 crore, up 7% year-on-year.
Airtel Xstream, one of its key digital assets, has achieved the 2 million paid subscriber milestone, and is now India’s fastest growing over-the-top aggregator platform.
Airtel Payments Bank also expanded its total customer base to 139 million with monthly transacting users of more than 44 million.
