Rise in data revenue by 31.7 percent, in Africa and Nigeria has led to 22 per cent increase in revenue to $1.1 billion. ARPU grew 12.4 per cent to $3.00. Mobile subscribers rose 6.9 per cent to 118.2 million. Average data usage increased 35 per cent to 2.9GB a month.
This has led to Bharti Airtel return to profit in its fiscal Q4 (ending 31 March), with double-digit mobile subscriber gains driving revenue growth, though ARPU dropped.
Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO for India and South Asia, highlighted another consistent quarterly performance, pointing to growth in mobile revenue through LTE additions and momentum in its home broadband business.
He added the enterprise segment delivered double-digit growth and its digital assets continued to scale: “we are beginning to see strong traction in monetisation of these assets.”
Net profit of INR7.6 billion ($103.9 million) compared with a loss of INR52.4 billion in fiscal Q4 2020. Revenue grew 11.9 per cent to INR257.5 billion.
Markets
An 8.6 per cent jump in mobile services revenue to INR140.8 billion
drove overall sales in India to INR183.4 billion, up 9.6 per cent.
Broadband service rose 5 per cent to INR6 billion; digital TV 27 per
cent to INR7.7 billion; and enterprise 10 per cent to INR37 billion.
Mobile subscribers increased 13.1 per cent to 350 million. It added 43 million LTE customers for a total of 179.3 million. ARPU fell 5.8 cent to INR145. Average monthly data usage per increased 12.5 per cent to 16.8GB.
It closed the quarter with nearly 607,000 mobile broadband base stations, 103,000 higher.
Mobile money transaction value increased 59.2 per cent to $12.8 billion, with Airtel Money revenue growing 38.7 per cent to $112 million and active users up 18.5 per cent to 21.7 million.
Capex fell 4 per cent to $211 million. It added about 29,500 mobile broadband base stations to end March with 76,563.
