Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Thursday (August 3) reported a flat net profit of Rs 1,612.5 crore for the first quarter that ended June 30, 2023.

In the corresponding quarter last year, Bharti Airtel posted a net profit of Rs 1,607 crore, the company said in a regulatory filing. CNBC-TV18 Polls had predicted a profit of Rs 2,671 crore for the quarter under review.

The total revenue stood at Rs 37,440 crore during the period under review, up 14.1 percent against Rs 32,805 crore in the corresponding period of the preceding fiscal, backed by strong and consistent performance delivery across the portfolio. CNBC-TV18 Polls had predicted revenue of Rs 36,520 crore for the quarter under review.

At the operating level, consolidated EBITDA witnessed an increase of 18.9 percent year-on-year to Rs 19,746 crore in the first quarter of FY24. This led to an improvement in EBITDA margin from 50.6 percent in the first quarter of FY23 to 52.7 percent in the first quarter of FY24 on the back of sustained focus on the war on the waste program to drive cost optimisation.

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EBITDA margins across businesses remained healthy, with India's EBITDA margins improving from 51.0 percent in Q1 FY23 to 53.7 percent in Q1 FY24, Bharti Airtel said.

The consolidated EBIT increased by 29.0 percent year-on-year to Rs 10,079 crore. The consolidated net income before exceptional items for the quarter stands at Rs 2,902 crore. The consolidated net income after exceptional items stood at Rs 1,612 crore. The net debt-EBITDA ratio (annualised) and including the impact of leases as on June 30, 2023, is at 2.63 times.

In a bid to deleverage the balance sheet, the company made a part prepayment of Rs 8,024 crore to DoT towards liabilities pertaining to spectrum acquired in 2015 spectrum.

Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for the quarter stood at Rs 200 as compared to Rs 183 in Q1 of FY23 on the back of sustained focus on acquiring quality customers and improved realisations on account of premiumization, Bharti Airtel said.

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The company added 0.8 million new addition in the first quarter of FY24 in the postpaid segment, thereby reaching a customer base of 40.4 million (including IoT). Airtel business became India's first enterprise to power over 20 million connected devices.

"We continue to garner a strong share of 4G customers in the market and added 24.5 million 4G data customers to our network over last year, an increase of 11.9 percent YoY. We continue to deliver industry-leading ARPU along with growing average data usage per data customer at 21.1 GBs/month," it said.

Digital TV continues to consolidate its strong market position with a 15.9 million customer base at the end of the quarter. The company has a robust customer base of 200 million+ MAUs across our key digital assets – Thanks, Xstream, and Wynk.

Gopal Vittal, MD, said, "Our consolidated revenue grew sequentially by 4.0 percent and EBITDA margin expanded to 52.7 percent, 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."

The results came after the close of the market hours. Shares of Bharti Airtel ended at Rs 871.95, down by Rs 5.80, or 0.66 percent on the BSE.

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First Published:Aug 3, 2023 5:22 PM IST