Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Tuesday posted Q4FY23 profit at Rs 3005.60 crore, up 49.7 per cent from Rs 2007.80 crore in the same quarter last year. It posted revenue from operations at Rs 36,009 crore, up 14.3 per cent from Rs 31,500.30 crore in the fourth quarter of FY22, backed by strong and consistent performance delivery across the portfolio. The Board also recommended a final dividend of Rs 4 per fully paid-up equity share of face value Rs 5 each and Re 1 per partly paid-up equity share of face value Rs 5 each for the financial year 2022-23.
The company posted ARPU at Rs 193 as against CNBC TV18 poll of Rs 196 -196.4 on the back of “continued focus on acquiring quality customers and delivering enhanced customer experience”. According to the poll, Bharti Airtel was expected to post profit at Rs 2,800 crore and revenue at Rs 36,500 crore for the quarter ended March 2023. “This has been another strong quarter as we end the fiscal year having further strengthened our portfolio. Our focus on acquiring quality customers has resulted in 7.4 million new 4G customers, as we exit the quarter with an industry leading ARPU of Rs 193,” said Gopal Vittal, MD, Bharti Airtel.
Bharti Airtel’s performance during Q4FY23
Bharti Airtel posted consolidated mobile data traffic at 14,030 PBs in the quarter with a healthy on-year growth of 21.5 per cent. Its India revenues of the fourth quarter stood at Rs 25,250 crore and mobile revenues grew by 11.5 per cent on-year on account of improved realisation as well as strong 4G customer additions during the year. Airtel has created 5G experience zones across all its retail stores in the country. “We strengthened our leadership position in the Postpaid segment with a customer base of 35.6 Mn (including IoT). We continue to garner a strong share of the 4G customers in the market and added 23.3 Mn 4G data customers to our network over last year, an increase of 11.6 per cent YoY,” the company said in a regulatory filing. Bharti Airtel also rolled out additional ~12.5k towers in the quarter to further strengthen its network coverage.
The Homes business, it added, delivered a revenue growth of 25.2 per cent YoY, in an endeavour to “harness the growing need for reliable and consistent broadband in India”. It added 404k customers during the quarter to reach a total base of 6.0 million.
Airtel business posted a revenue growth of 14.5 per cent on-year by leveraging the converged portfolio of Airtel and harvesting the rapidly increasing demand for data and connectivity related solutions.
Digital TV business garnered consolidated revenue at Rs 729 crore with 15.9 million customer base at the end of quarter. “We have robust customer base of ~200 Mn MAUs across our key digital assets – Thanks, Xstream and Wynk,” it said.
“A simple strategy and our relentless focus on execution has ensured that we close the year with market share gains across all businesses. We are also pleased to see the increased velocity of our digital deliveries across all parts of our business. This has been due to our sustained focus on digital platforms and talent. We continue to ramp up our 5G roll out and expect to connect all major towns and key villages by the end of this year,” Gopal Vittal concluded.