Bharti Airtel Q1 Profit Rises To Rs 1,612 Crore, ARPU Improves To Rs 200

Bharti Airtel, the country's second largest telecom operator, on Thursday reported marginal rise in net profit for quarter ended June 30. The company's net profit came in at Rs 1,612 crore compared with Rs 1,607 crore during the same period last year.

Its revenue from operations however rose 14 per cent to Rs 37,440 crore helped by strong addition of 4G users. Bharti Airtel's revenue came in at Rs 32,804 crore in the year ago period.

Bharti Airtel’s average revenue per user (ARPU), a key metric to measure profitability of a telecom firm, improved to Rs 200 per user per month compared with Rs 183 during the same quarter last year.

Mobile revenues grew by 12.4 per cent year-on-year (YoY) on account of improved realisation as well as strong 4G customer additions during the year. 

"We strengthened our leadership position in Postpaid segment with highest ever net adds of 0.8 million in Q1’24 thereby reaching a customer base of 40.4 Mn (including IoT). Airtel business became India’s first enterprise to power over 20 Mn connected devices. We continue to garner strong share of 4G customers in the market and added 24.5 Mn 4G data customers to our network over last year, an increase of 11.9 per cent YoY. We continue to deliver industry leading ARPU along with growing average data usage per data customer at 21.1 GBs/month," Bharti Airtel said in a press release.

“We have delivered yet another quarter of strong and competitive growth across all our businesses. Our consolidated revenue grew sequentially by 4.0 per cent, and EBITDA margin expanded to 52.7 per cent, underscoring the simplicity and execution of our strategy. Our focus on winning quality customers and driving premiumization has helped us add 5.6 Mn new 4G customers and the highest ever postpaid customers in any one quarter. We exit the quarter with an industry leading ARPU of Rs 200. Homes, Enterprise and our digital businesses continue to exhibit strong growth momentum, reflecting the resilience and strength of our overall portfolio," Gopal Vittal, Bharti Airtel's Managing  Director said in a statement.

Bharti Airtel shares ended 0.66 per cent lower at Rs 871.95 ahead of its earnings announcement.