Overall customer base stands at 540 million across 16 countries
FinTech BizNews Service
Mumbai, 31 October, 2023: Bharti Airtel announces consolidated results for the second quarter ended September 30, 2023.
Highlights for the second quarter ended September 30, 2023
Consolidated • Overall customer base stands at 540 million across 16 countries
• Total revenues at Rs 37,044 crore, up 7.3% YoY
• EBITDA at Rs 19,665 crore, up 11.0% YoY; EBITDA margin at 53.1%, expansion of 176 bps YoY
• EBIT at Rs 9,929 crore, up 13.3% YoY; EBIT margin at 26.8%, expansion of 143 bps YoY
• Net Income (before exceptional items) at Rs 2,960 crore
• Net income (after exceptional items) at Rs 1,341 crore
• Capex for the quarter at Rs 9,206 crore
India
• India revenue at Rs 26,995 crore, up 10.9%YoY
• EBITDA margin at 53.9% up 214 bps YoY. EBIT margin at 24.0%, up 253 bps YoY • Customer base stands at 389 million
Q2’24 Performance:
The consolidated revenues for Q2’24 at Rs 37,044 crore grew 7.3% YoY. Consolidated revenue growth was impacted by devaluation of Nigeria Naira and other currencies during the period. Consolidated mobile data traffic at 15,966 PBs in the quarter with a healthy YoY growth of 20.7%. India revenues for Q2’24 at Rs 26,995 crore, increased by 10.9% YoY. Mobile revenues grew by 11.0% YoY on account of improved realisation as well as strong 4G/5G customer additions during the year. ARPU for the quarter stood at Rs 203 as compared to Rs 190 in Q2’23 on the back of sustained focus on acquiring high value customers and improved realizations.
Technological Innovations
We continue to take lead on technological innovations as we successfully tested India’s first Reduced Capability (RedCap) technology on our 5G network in partnership with Ericsson. RedCap solution will bring down complexity and extend battery life of devices while delivering higher data speeds. We strengthened our leadership position in Postpaid segment with highest ever net adds of 1.0 Mn in Q2’24 thereby reaching a customer base of 43.9 Mn (including IoT). We continue to garner strong market share of 4G/5G customers and added 27.2 Mn 4G/5G data customers to our network over last year, an increase of 12.9% YoY. We continue to deliver industry leading ARPU along with growing average data usage per data customer at 21.7 GBs/month.
Rolled Out 11.1k Towers
We rolled out 11.1k towers in the quarter to further strengthen our network coverage and provide seamless connectivity. We have rolled out ~41k towers in last 12 months to ensure coverage and connectivity in rural as well as urban areas. We continue to make progress on our ESG agenda. Our sustainability initiatives have been recognized at the prestigious Golden Peacock Awards for Sustainability 2023 in the Telecom category. This recognition reinforces our continuous efforts towards maintaining the balance between our business goals and our unwavering commitment to societal and environmental well-being. Homes business maintains its rapid growth trajectory and delivered a revenue growth of 23.3% YoY, result of company’s strategy to harness the growing demand of high-speed and reliable broadband in India. Our focus on digitization and acquiring high value customers led to an all time high 471 K customer additions in the quarter to reach to a total base of 6.9 Mn. We continue to accelerate our rollouts on the back of innovative asset light local cable operator partnership model, we are now live in 1239 cities.
Airtel Xstream AirFiber
We launched Airtel Xstream AirFiber, India’s 1st wireless home Wi-Fi service powered by 5G plus to consumers in Delhi and Mumbai. Airtel Xstream AirFiber will complement our existing FTTH solution and address the last mile connectivity issues in both rural and urban India. Airtel Business maintained its industry leading organic revenue growth of 9.5% YoY by leveraging the converged portfolio of Airtel and harvesting the rapidly increasing demand for data and core connectivity related solutions. Our emerging digital products are also yielding strong results. In its commitment to reduce its carbon footprint, Airtel signed definitive agreements to purchase 23,000 MWh of renewable energy by Q4 FY 23-24 to power six of Nxtra’s Edge data center facilities. For this, Airtel will acquire stakes in the renewable energy project companies established by Continuum Green India Pvt. Ltd. and Vibrant Energy Holdings Pte. Ltd. Nxtra is committed to become a net zero emissions company by 2031. Digital TV continues to consolidate its strong market position with 15.7 Mn customer base at the end of quarter. Company’s focus on market specific strategy coupled with simplified pricing and convergence portfolio ensured that the business continues to hold its market share We have been scaling our digital capabilities to deliver best-in-class experience and offering differentiated digital services to our customers.
Robust Customer Base
We have robust customer base of more than 210 Mn MAUs across our key digital assets – Thanks, Xstream and Wynk. Our digital services span both across B2B and B2C and include Ads, Cpaas, Airtel IQ, IoT, Cloud, SD-WAN and Airtel Finance. . We launched Airtel IQ Reach – India’s first-of-its-kind self-serve marketing communications platform. Airtel IQ Reach is an intuitive platform that will enable businesses, especially the emerging companies to plan and execute effective customer communication and engagement at affordable costs.
Mitra App
There are 1.2 million retailers transacting and making payments every day on Mitra App. Consolidated EBITDA witnessed an increase of 11.0% YoY to Rs 19,665 crore in Q2’24. This led to an improvement in EBITDA margin from 51.3% in Q2’23 to 53.1% in Q2’24 on the back of sustained focus on our War on Waste program to drive cost optimization.
EBITDA margins across businesses remained healthy, with India EBITDA margins improving from 51.8% in Q2’23 to 53.9% in Q2’24. Consolidated EBIT increased by 13.3% YoY to Rs 9,929 crore. The Consolidated Net Income before exceptional items for the quarter stands at Rs 2,960 crore. The Consolidated Net income after exceptional items stood at Rs 1,341 crore.
Net Debt-EBITDA ratio
The Net Debt-EBITDA ratio (annualized) and including the impact of leases as on September 30, 2023 is at 2.63 times. We continue to optimize the capital structure by judiciously allocating capital across our businesses to strengthen the balance sheet. Bharti Airtel was ranked as the Most Outstanding Company in India across all sectors as well as for the Telecommunications sector in Asiamoney Poll 2023. The Asiamoney Asia's Outstanding Companies Poll recognizes publicly listed companies that have shown exceptional performance in various areas, including financial performance, management team excellence, investor relations, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
In a statement, Gopal Vittal, MD, said: “This has been yet another quarter of solid revenue growths and improved margins. Our India revenue continues to gain momentum and grew sequentially by 2.4%. Our consolidated revenue however was impacted by the devaluation of the Nigerian Naira. Consolidated EBITDA margins expanded to 53.1% supported by a strong war on Waste program. We added 7.7 million 4G/5G net adds and exited the quarter with an industry leading ARPU of 203. Our Postpaid and Homes businesses continued their strong growth trajectory as we added the highest ever net adds in both these segments in any single quarter. Our performance is under pinned by a simple and consistent strategy of focusing on quality customers and delivering the best experience to them in a seamless digital way.”
Africa
• Revenue (in constant currency) up 19.0%YoY • EBITDA margin at 49.6%, up 43 bps YoY. EBIT margin at 33.7% • Customer base stands at 147.7 million • Capex for the quarter at Rs 1,419 crore
