(by Nikhil Pahwa & Preethi J)

Bharti Airtel has anounced net profits (consolidated) of Rs. 21593 million, up 5.52%, but has reported a decline in the EBITDA of 1.05% since the last quarter. Total revenues for the quarter were Rs. 96334 million, up 6.8 percent since the last quarter. Surprisingly, revenues for the Telemedia business actually declined 0.15% – is Airtel DTH not finding buyers? EBITDA for the Telemedia business declined as well, by around 12%. For the year-on-year performance, please refer to the financials linked to below.

VAS Revenues & ARPU

Airtels Average Revenue Per User continues to decline, even as the total monthly revenues from Value Added Services appears to have grown, as per our calculations. The company earned an average of Rs. 2636.3 million per month, up from Rs. 2595.5 million/month last quarter. The contribution of VAS to ARPU has however declined to 9.5%, as has the non-SMS part of this VAS. 

In absolute terms, non-SMS VAS, which are data services including Voice, Internet (WAP), Gaming, Music (Ring-Back Tones) etc, has grown marginally to Rs. 1498.5 million, from Rs. 1479.4 million per month, for the quarter – a growth of just 1.29%.

Subscriber Addition, Minutes Of Use & Churn

Airtel’s subscriber base was up 10.55% quarter on quarter to 85,650,733, with net monthly additions at 2.72 million subscribers added per month.

It’s all about prepaid: 93.5% of Airtel’s subscribers are pre-paid, and 99.6 percent of the new subscriber additions were prepaid. For the second quarter in succession, pre-paid churn declined to 2.9%, from 3.1% last quarter, and 3.8% the quarter before. Post-paid churn remained the same at 1.1%.

Minutes of use per subscriber went up marginally from 534 minutes to 536 minutes. 

Mobile Subscribers: 85.650.733, up 10.55% from 77,479,215 last quarter
Marketshare: 24.7%, with 25.9% of net additions. Airtels share of net additions has declined from 28.5% last quarter.
Prepaid: 93.5% of the total subscriber base, with 99.6% of  new additions
Churn: 2.9% Prepaid, and 1.1% post-paid (voluntary), 1.2% company initiated post-paid churn
Minutes of Use: 505, down from 526 last quarter

Telemedia Services

Airtel Telemedia, which consists of their Broadband, DTH, IPTV and wireline business, has a total subscriber base of 2,619,000 customers, up 4.37% from 2,509,460 customers at the end of September 2008. Strangely enough, the Wireline ARPU has also been declining: it is at Rs. 1098, down from Rs. 1147 in Q2.

Airtel has 992,775 subscribers, up from around 920,000 the quarter before.

Details: Quarterly Report, Financials, Key Performance Indicators, Earnings Release