Bharti Q3 net slides as finance costs increase

The good news on the operational side was the 4% quarter-on-quarter increase in Arpu at Rs 185 against the preceding quarter’s Rs 177. The monthly churn rate also came down 5.9% against the previous quarter’s 8.5%.

The minutes of usage also increased to 435 against preceding quarter’s 417, signifying that traffic is returning to the network. This maybe because increasingly, mobile firms are deactivating inactive customers. The other positive trend is the growing trend of data customer base and increasing Arpus here. The company’s total data customer base during the period increased to 41,480 against the preceding quarter’s 40,600. Of this the 3G customer base was at 5,187, compared with 4,014 a quarter earlier. The data Arpu at Rs 47 was 9% up on a quarterly basis. Recently, the company also adjusted its tariffs upwards in a manner that its realisations improve.

In the near term, the company expects stability with an upward bias on the tariff front because the overcrowding in the market has diminished with a host of cancellation of licences by the Supreme Court last year. The fresh auction that took place in November did see some players re-enter the market but only in select circles. With the monthly gross addition of subscribers coming down, there’s not much pressure on the operators to lower tariffs.

Analyst maintain that while such a move and trends are good, the real drag on the company in the coming quarters would be the finance cost due to the debt it took to

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