Bharti Airtel posted a net loss of Rs 1,035 crore in Q3FY20 — its third quarterly loss — though, the net loss narrowed significantly from a whopping Rs 23,045 crore in Q2FY20. Meanwhile, the company's Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) gained considerable ground, and reached Rs 135 in Q3, compared to Rs 128 in the previous quarter — a growth rate of 5.3%. In comparison, rival Reliance Jio posted an ARPU of Rs 128.4 in Q3FY20. The company added 20.6 million 4G subscribers in India, and claimed that it was the highest quarterly 4G subscriber addition in the company’s history. Across 16 countries, Airtel’s overall customer base stood at 418.8 million. Indian revenues for Q3 at Rs 15,797 crore grew 7% YoY, and consolidated revenue grew 8.5% YoY to Rs 21,947 crore. The company’s MD and CEO, Gopal Vittal, said the tariff revision in December 2019 was a “welcome step” in “repairing” the financial health of the telecom sector, and added that “tariffs must go up further for enabling the industry to invest in emerging technologies” — this suggests that there could potentially be another tariff hike in the coming months. Revenue from mobile services in India was Rs 11,397 crore, up from Rs 10,811 crore in Q2FY20. Voice usage per customer in India increased by 5.8% QoQ to 898 minutes. Mobile data traffic on the network grew to 5,166 PBs in the quarter, compared to 2,996 PBs in Q3FY19. Vittal further said that Airtel is in the process of shutting…
