Bharti Airtel has reported a net profit of Rs 97.3 crore in the first quarter of the financial year 2018–19 (Q1FY19), recording a massive fall of 74% as compared to the same quarter last year (Q1FY18) when it had posted a profit of Rs 367.3 crore. This is in line with the trend that has been seen in the past year.
Per the Economic Times, Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia for Airtel said about the results, “Our investments have led to some opex headwinds in this quarter, but we remain focused on structural cost containment through our War on Waste program. With consolidation largely done, the secular opportunity of the Indian telecom market continues to excite us and we remain committed to offer best-in-class services to all consumers.”
Revenue: Consolidated revenues fell by 9% year-on-year to Rs 20,080 crore. While revenues from Africa were up by 8.89% YoY, it could not compensate for the fall in India — of 13% YoY to Rs 14,930 crore in Q1FY19. Airtel said that this was primarily impacted by a cellular revenue drop, as it did for a similar drop in the previous quarter (Q4FY18).
Performance indicators
- Consolidated EBITDA (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) for the quarter was Rs 6,837 crore against the Rs 7,823 crore same quarter last year, recording a fall of 12.6%.
- ARPU (average revenue per user) in India for voice and data combined was Rs 105 as compared to the Rs 154 in Q1FY18.
- Airtel said that the continued “pricing fiat” — presumably referring to the ongoing tariff wars — was contributing to the decline in ARPU.
Consumer base
- The total consumer base for Airtel across markets and services added up to 456.6 million, a quarterly growth of 10.35% from Q4FY18. The number stood at 413.8 million in March 2018 and 394.2 million in December 2017.
- Indian mobile customers grew by 13.3% from the last quarter to 344.5 million. Part of the reason for this could be the closure of services of other telecom companies.
- Mobile data traffic grew to 2,236 billion MBs in the quarter marking a growth of 327.9% YoY and 38.4% QoQ.
- Consumption of data per user stood at 7,864 MB as compared to 6,585 MB in March 2018.
I cover the digital content ecosystem and telecom for MediaNama.
