After managing to have a profitable quarter (albeit with a large drop), against predictions saying that Airtel will post a loss, CEO and MD Gopal Vittal thinks the company has held well in the given environment. “After two years of industry mayhem and regulatory hits, we have held well in terms of market share and margins. For us, the most important measure to track performance in this period of heightened competitive intensity is getting more customers,” he said during the conference call of Q4FY18 results. Bharti Airtel has reported a net profit of Rs 82.9 crore and a consolidated revenue of Rs 19,634 crore last quarter. You can read more about the results here. Five-pronged strategy Global CFO for Airtel Nilanjan Roy announced the company’s five-pronged strategy for next year while counting the progress in the previous one. 4G was the most crucial aspect for Airtel, with emphasis on it throughout the call. Airtel said it intended to win the 4G game by gaining subscribers by driving upgrade from 2G and 3G to 4G in the network. “With lowering of prices, large chunk of our customers will upgrade over the next few years which presents a massive opportunity for us to be the primary 4G provider.” “Each year, 130 million 4G devices are shipped to the country, with upgrade driving most of the shipment.” The company said it is partnering with handset manufacturers. “In future low-end smartphone can replace feature phone—for this we have partnered with Google to launch Android…
