Consolidated net profit (after exceptional items) for India’s second-largest telco fell for the second consecutive quarter to Rs 1,340.7 crore in the July-September quarter from Rs1,612.5 crore in the preceding quarter and Rs 2,145.2 crore a year earlier.
Airtel’s net income (before exceptional items), though, rose 44.2% on-year and 2% sequentially to Rs 2,960 crore.
“This decision (court ruling) does not alter the total amount of VLF allowed as deduction over the licence period but creates a timing difference wherein later years would have a higher deduction,” the company said in its earnings statement Tuesday.
As a result, Airtel has made a tax provision of Rs 226.3 crore and included the interest charge on the matter amounting to Rs 1,350 crore as part of the exceptional items, it added. “Additionally, exceptional items include a charge of Rs 2,203 million (Rs 220.3 crore) on account of re-assessment of regulatory levies. The tax credit on above re-assessment amounting to Rs 554 million is included under the tax expense (credit).”
Consolidated revenue was Rs 37,044 crore, down 1% sequentially from Rs 37,440 crore in the fiscal first quarter and 7.3% higher from a year earlier when it had reported Rs 34,527 crore.
“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 programme,” managing director Gopal Vittal said in a statement.Airtel’s average revenue per user (ARPU) for the quarter rose to Rs 203, up 1.5% from Rs 200 in Q1FY24 and was in line with market estimates. Its subscriber base grew to 342.3 million, with 3.7 million net user additions in the past quarter.
ARPU increased “partly owing to higher number of days and net subscriber addition was at 3.7 million. 4G customer addition was at an impressive 7.7 million versus 6.4 million in Q1,” analysts from brokerage firm Prabhudas Lilladher said.
Airtel’s 4G/5G data customer base stood at 237.5 million in the September quarter. The company added 979,000 post-paid users in July-September, its highest ever for a quarter, boosting its post-paid base to 43.9 million (including IoT connections).
“Our Post-paid and Homes businesses continued their strong growth trajectory as we added the highest ever net adds in both these segments in any single quarter,” Vittal said.
Overall, Airtel ended the quarter with nearly 389.45 million customers, including fixed broadband, DTH and enterprise. Including other geographies like Africa, the company’s consolidated user base was 540.16 million.
Airtel shares fell 1.26% to Rs 914.20 on the BSE Tuesday. Earnings were announced shortly after market hours.
The company’s India mobile revenue – which contributes around 77% to the total – grew 2.7% sequentially and 11% on-year in the fiscal second quarter to Rs 20,952.1 crore. This was helped by ARPU growth, on the back of decent post-paid user additions as well as a pick-up in 2G to 4G conversions, the company said.
Monthly churn was slightly higher than the previous quarter at 2.9% (Q1: 2.8%).
This was Airtel’s 12th successive quarter in the black, after reporting losses for six straight quarters. Analysts said the strong ARPU growth had stemmed from its push for quality post-paid customers, coupled with strong 2G to 4G upgrades.
The company reported 7.1% on-year growth in average data usage per customer to 21.7 GB (20.3 GB in Q2FY23). Sequentially, per-capita data usage grew 2.7%. Voice usage per user rose 3.8% on-year, but dropped 1.3% on-quarter to 1,123 minutes.
Consolidated net debt, including lease obligations, stood at Rs 2.07 lakh-crore in the quarter to June, showing a marginal decline of Rs 713 crore from the previous quarter.
