Bharti Airtel on Tuesday reported its fiscal fourth quarter profit at Rs 2071.60 crore, down 31.1 per cent on-year in comparison to Rs 3005.60 crore during the corresponding quarter of last year. It posted revenue from operations at Rs 37,599.10 crore, up 4.4 per cent as against Rs 36,009.00 crore during the fourth quarter of FY23. The consolidated revenue was impacted by currency devaluation in Africa, particularly Nigerian Naira. The company EBITDA stood at Rs 19,590 crore. Bharti Airtel said that the consolidated mobile data traffic was at 17,702 PBs in the quarter with a healthy YoY growth of 26.2 per cent.
Bharti Airtel’s India business
Bharti Airtel’s India revenues for Q4FY24 came in at Rs 28,513 crore, up 12.9 per cent YoY. Mobile revenues grew by 12.9 per cent YoY on account of improved realisation as well as strong 4G/5G customer additions during the year. Meanwhile, ARPU for the quarter stood at Rs 209 as compared to Rs 193 in Q4FY23 driven by sustained focus on acquiring quality customers and mix improvement.
In the postpaid segment, the company strengthened its position with net adds of 0.8 million in Q4FY24 thereby reaching a customer base of 51.2 million (including IoT). “We continue to garner market share of 4G/5G customers and added 28.6 million 4G/5G data customers to our network over last year, an increase of 12.8 per cent YoY. We continue to deliver industry leading ARPU growth along with growing average data usage per data customer,” it said. The company rolled out around 10.5k towers in the quarter and 43,102 towers during the year.
Bharti Airtel’s Homes business delivered a revenue growth of 20.0 per cent YoY. It added 331 K customers in the quarter to reach a total base of 7.6 million. Airtel Business delivered revenue growth of 14.1 per cent YoY by leveraging the converged portfolio of Airtel and harvesting the increasing demand for data and connectivity solutions.
Digital TV reported 16.1 million customer base at the end of quarter. “Company’s focus on market specific strategy coupled with simplified pricing and convergence approach ensured that the business continues to grow its market share,” it said.
Gopal Vittal, MD, Bharti Airtel, said, “We ended the year on a strong note with consistent performance across all businesses, both on customer metrics as well as financial parameters. India revenue (adjusted for Beetel) grew by 1.7 per cent with EBITDA margin expanding to 54.1 per cent, despite one day less in the quarter. Consolidated performance was impacted primarily by the devaluation of the Nigerian Naira. We added 7.8 million smartphone customers and delivered an industry leading ARPU of Rs 209. Our relentless focus on improving customer experience has resulted in 20 per cent churn reduction during the quarter. Our simple and clear strategy coupled with razor-sharp focus on execution enabled us to end the quarter with life-time high market share across all businesses. Our efforts on digitizing Airtel are now gathering velocity and is being visibly felt across all parts of our operations. At the same time, our return on capital employed continues to remain low due to the absence of tariff repair in the industry.”
Bharti Airtel’s Africa business
Bharti Airtel’s Africa business reported revenue growth of 23.1 per cent on-year. The EBITDA margin (in constant currency) was at 47.4 per cent, down 148 bps on-year. Customer base stood at 153 million. The company said that the capex for the quarter was at Rs 2,019 crore
Final dividend announced
The company board also recommended a final dividend of Rs 8 per fully paid-up equity share of face value Rs 5 each and Rs 2 per partly paid-up equity share of face value Rs 5 each (paid-up value Rs 1.25 per share) for the financial year 2023-24. “The dividend is in proportion to the amount paid-up on each equity share of face value Rs 5 each,” it said in a regulatory filing.