State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) has marginally narrowed its net loss to Rs 2,785 crore in the April-September period from Rs 2,951 crore in the year-ago period, according to financial statements. This came on the back of an increase in revenue and income tax-related adjustment of Rs 168 crore in the July-September quarter.
Revenue from operations grew 10.4% year-on-year (y-o-y) to Rs 9,235 crore during the six months ended September on the back of surge in revenue from all its business segments — consumer mobility, enterprise business and consumer fixed access verticals.
Total expenses of BSNL rose 4.5% y-o-y to Rs 12,890 crore. Of this, employee costs were at Rs 4,042 crore, an increase of 5.7% from the year-ago period. Employee costs account for 31% of the total expenses and 44% of the operating revenue of the telco.
Officials said the company is making operating profit, and its Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) has risen nearly 57% y-o-y to Rs 904 crore in H1.
BSNL’s capital expenditure requirements and expenses related to adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues, among others, are borne by the government as per the earlier revival package for the company. For example, the company received a funding of Rs 3,000 crore from the government on September 30, and in lieu of that the company issued equity shares to the government, according to its financial statements.
Consumer mobility business, which includes revenue from cellular services, witnessed around 2% y-o-y increase in revenue to Rs 3,473.5 crore. Separately, revenue from cellular services, which contributes nearly 27% to the company’s revenue, fell 6.6% y-o-y to Rs 2,522 crore. This is because the company is yet to deploy its 4G services pan-India and the benefit from the increase in mobile tariffs by the private telecom operators came only in the July-September quarter. Prior to that, BSNL was witnessing a fall in revenue from cellular services.
In the April-June quarter, BSNL’s revenue from the consumer mobility business fell 6% sequentially and 0.5% y-o-y to Rs 1,666 crore. In the July-September quarter, the company added 6.25 million mobile users on the back of users’ port-out from private telecom operators — Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea after the recent tariff hikes, according to data by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
As of September end, BSNL’s mobile subscribers’ base was at 91.9 million. The company’s enterprise business revenue rose 12% y-o-y to Rs 2,291 crore in the April-September period.
For FY25 and FY26, the company has revenue targets of Rs 24,428 crore and Rs 28,476 crore, respectively. For FY27 and FY28, the company has a target to clock Rs 33,553 crore and Rs 35,960 crore in revenue, respectively. The revenue targets are set by the government as part of the Rs 3.2-lakh-crore revival package.