Country’s largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel’s third quarter net profit skyrocketed by 115.1 per cent to Rs 610 crore as against Rs 284 crore in the same quarter last fiscal. Backed by growth in its mobile internet business, Airtel was finally successful in reporting a growth in net profit after 15 straight quarters.
“Our focus on superior Internet experience has resulted in increased data adoption and usage. Data is now a huge source of revenue growth,” Bharti Airtel Joint MD and CEO (India operations) Gopal Vittal said.
Consolidated mobile Internet revenues grew by 105.2 per cent year-on-year to Rs 1,736 crore, accounting for more than one-third of the overall incremental revenue, the company said. The company’s total revenues rose 13.3 per cent to Rs 21,939 crore for the quarter as compared to Rs 19,362 crore in the same period of the last fiscal.
Airtel said data customer base in India has increased by 31.2 per cent to 54.4 million customers and usage per customer gone up by 54.4 per cent, leading to 97.0 per cent increase in total data traffic. The average revenue per user (ARPU) increased by Rs 9.7 to Rs 195.
The company’s net debt has been reduced to Rs 57,643 crore at the end of December 2013. On the back of good results, Bharti Airtel’s shares were trading at Rs 309.25 apiece in the morning trade, up 1.03 per cent. International revenues, comprising Africa and South Asia, rose 18.50 per cent to Rs 7,676.3 crore for the third quarter as against Rs 6,477.5 crore in the same period of the last fiscal.
However, net loss for international operations widened to Rs 1,123.7 crore in the December quarter of this fiscal as compared to Rs 602.8 crore in the same period a year ago. “The international operations continued to achieve steady revenue growth. Africa had another quarter of strong growth from the 3G/Data and Airtel Money services across all its markets, and we expect this trend to sustain due to large investments in brand and network,” Bharti Airtel MD and CEO (International operations) Manoj Kohli said.
The average revenue per user in Africa was down 7 per cent to $5.8 for the quarter as compared to $6.2 last year. The consolidated EBITDA margin improved to 32.3 per cent for the reported quarter as compared to 29.8 per cent in the year-ago period. As the company announced its Q3 numbers, Bharti Airtel’s stock price on Sensex skyrocketed to an intraday high of Rs 314.80 per share but towards the end of the session fell as the overall results were below expectation and closed at Rs 301.65 per share in red.