Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel posted a pretty tepid QoQ performance with the consolidated net profit showing an increase of 4% at Rs.1437 crore and this was despite the fact that Q2 had an exceptional loss of Rs.292 crore. Its consolidated revenue rose less than 2% at Rs.23,217 crore. EBITDA rose 1% at Rs.7786 crore while margins actually showed a decline of 20 bps at 33.5%.

Africa continues to disappoint though India did much better. Wireless revenue from India rose 4% at Rs.13,163 crore with 6% rise in EBITDA and margins expanding 56 bps at 37.06%.  Volume growth was more or less stable at 1.36% while Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) was up 2%. Voice revenue per user fell marginally from 37.69 to 37.67. Minutes of usage per subscriber also fell from 418 minutes to 416 minutes.

Overall data volume growth for the company was up14% at 77.282 million MBs while data usage per customer rose 10.5% to 622 MBs. Realisation per MB went up from 26.67 paise to 27.36.

On the other hand, the big lag continues to remain Africa. It continued to post losses which rose from $124 million in Q2 to $136 million in current Q3. Forex losses and higher capex continues to bleed the African operations.

Bharti’s customer base as at end of Q3 stood at 313 million across 20 countries and net debt stood at Rs. 66,839 crore.