Bharti Airtel, which has deferred announcing the Q2 results on Tuesday, released its operational highlights as per which it posted a drop in its average revenue per user (ARPU) in the September quarter.

Airtel recorded an ARPU of Rs 128 in the September quarter, down from Rs 129 in the June quarter.

ARPU is the total revenue of the operator divided by the number of users or connections on its network.

Airtel's revenue from mobile services in India was slightly up at Rs 10, 811 crore in the three months ended 30 September, up from Rs 10,724 crore in the June quarter. Its subscriber base grew to 279.43 million in the September quarter from 276.81 million in the preceding quarter.

Reliance Jio, too, had a drop in its ARPU in the September quarter to Rs 120 with 355.2 million users from Rs 122 with 331.3 million users as of June end. Vodafone Idea has not yet announced operational highlights and financial statements for the September quarter.

The Supreme Court last week upheld the government's definition of revenue on which it calculates levies on telecom operators, dealing a Rs 92,000 crore blow to an industry already reeling from a collapse in tariffs and mounting debt.

The top court rejected the definition of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) proposed by telecom operators. Operators had excluded revenue from non-core telecom operations such as rent, dividend, and interest income, marking the end of a 14-year-long legal tussle between the DoT and operators.

First Published:Oct 29, 2019 11:49 PM IST