Bharti Airtel posts strong Q2 revenue growth on user additions

Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s No.2 telecom carrier by subscribers, reported a bigger-than-expected increase in second-quarter revenue on Monday, helped by 4G subscriber additions and higher revenue per user.

The company’s consolidated revenue from operations rose almost 22% year-over-year to ₹345.27 billion ($4.17 billion) in the three months ended September 30.

Analysts, on average, were expecting a revenue of ₹339.21 billion, according to Refinitiv IBES data.

Airtel, as the company is popularly called, said revenue from its India mobile services, which has 328 million subscribers, rose almost 25% to ₹189.58 billion.

Its 4G data customers increased by 5 million from the previous quarter to 210 million in the latest quarter.

Airtel’s average revenue per user (ARPU), a key performance indicator for telecom firms, was ₹190, clocking a 3.8% sequential rise and a roughly 24% year-on-year increase.

Earlier this month, market leader Reliance Jio, the telecom arm of conglomerate Reliance Industries, said its ARPU rose just under 1% sequentially to ₹177.2 in the quarter.

Airtel’s net profit for the September-quarter climbed to ₹21.45 billion from ₹11.34 billion a year ago, but missed analysts’ estimates of ₹24.67 billion. Its expenses surged by 16.7% in the quarter.

The New Delhi-based company said mobile data consumption surged by 19.6%, with consumption per mobile data customer at 20.3 GB per month.

Analysts expect telecom firms to announce tariff hikes by the end of fiscal 2023, having spent billions of dollars in the country’s recent 5G auction. Airtel spent ₹430.84 billion and launched its 5G services earlier this month.

ARPU needs to be at ₹200 and ultimately at ₹300 for a financially healthy business model, Airtel said last November, when it raised tariffs.