Indian Economy News

India's Bharti Airtel swings to quarterly profit on subscriber additions

Bharti Airtel Ltd, an Indian telecom operator, reported a quarterly profit on Monday, boosted by subscriber additions and enhanced data usage as remote working growth continues during the pandemic.

Although Indian telecom operators are witnessing a decrease in recharges and new connection sales at physical stores as a result of COVID-19 restrictions, this has been offset by an increase in online transactions and subscriber additions.

For the quarter ended March 31, 2021, the country's second-largest telecom operator reported a consolidated profit of Rs. 7.59 billion (US$ 103.62 million), as against a loss of Rs. 52.37 billion (US$ 714.66 million) a year ago.

In the first three months of 2021, Airtel added 14.1 million subscribers in India, bringing its total subscriber base to > 350 million.

Reliance Jio, owned by billionaire Mr. Mukesh Ambani, added 15.4 million net subscribers in the quarter, bringing its total customer base to 426.2 million as of March 31, 2021.

Airtel's quarterly average revenue per user in its mobile services business in India increased by 7.4% YoY to Rs. 145 (US$ 1.98).

This occurred despite the fact that the interconnect usage charge, which is the amount paid by one telco to another when its customers make voice calls to subscribers of the other network, was eliminated on January 1.

Bharti Airtel's EBITDA margin increased to 48.9% in the fourth quarter, up from 42.4% the previous year.

According to the company, the revenue from operations for the quarter was Rs. 257.47 billion (US$ 3.51 billion), up nearly 12% from Rs. 230.19 billion (US$ 3.14 billion) the previous year.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.