Bharti Airtel Q4 results: Net profit rises to Rs 2,008 cr

Bharti Airtel Limited announced its audited consolidated Ind AS results for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2022.

Q4’22 performance:
The consolidated revenues for Q4’22 at Rs 31,500 crore grew 22.3% YoY. Consolidated mobile data traffic at 11,550 PBs in the quarter with a healthy YoY growth of 29.5%.

India revenues for Q4’22 at Rs 22,500 crore, increased by 22.7% YoY. Mobile revenues grew by 25.1% YoY on account of increase in ARPU led by healthy flow through of tariff revision and strong 4G customer additions during the year. ARPU for the quarter came in at Rs 178 as compared to Rs 145 in Q4’21. This is an outcome of the company’s unrelenting focus on winning quality customers by delivering differentiated experience.

We continue to gain strong share of the 4G customers in the market and surpassed +200 Mn mark towards the end of Q4’22. The company has added 21.5 Mn 4G customers to its network over last year, an increase by 12.0% YoY. ARPU continues to be the best in industry, average data usage per data customer at 18.8 GBs/month and voice usage per customer at 1,083 mins/month.

We rolled out additional ₹7k towers in the quarter to provide ubiquitous connectivity and differentiated network experience.

We also showcased India’s first LIVE 5G powered hologram, as Kapil Dev’s virtual avatar interacts with fans in real-time from a remote location. This exemplifies the infinite possibilities of 5G experience and Airtel’s readiness. Several initiatives have also been undertaken to improve Network quality – leveraging digital tools/probes to monitor and improve customer experience and scaling up Vo-Wi-Fi adoption to improve indoor experience. We now have over 40 Mn customers using our Vo-Wi-Fi services.

Homes business segment continues its strong momentum with revenue growth of 45.8% YoY and customer net additions of ₹323 K during the quarter to reach to a total base of 4.5 Mn. LCO partnership model continues to play a pivotal role in accelerated expansion, we are now live in 761 cities through this model with overall operations in 847 cities

Airtel Business continues to accelerate its momentum with 12.9% YoY growth, driven by rapidly increasing demand for data, connectivity related solutions and CPaaS (Communication Platform as a Service). We have joined the SEA-ME-WE-6 undersea cable consortium to scale up our high speed global network capacity to serve India’s fast growing digital economy.

Digital TV continues to hold its leadership position with 17.6 Mn customer base at the end of quarter. We continue to make progress through innovative propositions and differential converged experience to accelerate the business growth.

The Digital services offerings of Airtel continue to remain robust with a healthy engaged customer base of over 189 Mn MAUs across our key digital assets – Thanks, Wynk, Xstream. In an industry first, Airtel Xstream Premium aggregates content from 14 leading Video Apps with a single login, single search and single subscription. We also launched first-of-its-kind Airtel Axis Bank Credit Card with exclusive benefits and complimentary services to Airtel customers.

There are over 1.2 million retailers transacting and making payments every day on Mitra App. Our Digital offerings includingcloud communication & adtech platforms continues to gain strong momentum with new customer on boarding. During the quarter, Airtel Payments Bank continue to expand its footing with a strong total customer base of over 129 Mn and highly engaged Monthly Transacting Users (MTU) base of ₹37 Mn.

Consolidated EBITDA witnessed an increase of 27.1% YoY to Rs 15,998 crore in Q4’22. This led to an improvement in EBITDA margin from 48.9% in Q4’21 to 50.8% in Q4’22 exhibiting our continued focus on operational efficiencies. Incremental EBITDA margins across businesses remained healthy, with India mobile services EBITDA improving from 47.5% in Q4’21 to 50.6% in Q4’22.

Consolidated EBIT increased by 44.9% YoY to Rs 7,315 crore. The Consolidated Net Income before exceptional items for the quarter stands at Rs 1,860 crore. The Consolidated Net income after exceptional items for the quarter stands at Rs 2,008 crore. The Net Debt-EBITDA ratio (annualized) and including the impact of leases as on March 31, 2022 is at 2.51 times as compared to 2.95 times as on March 31, 2021. We paid additional Rs 8,815 crore towards part prepayment of deferred liabilities for spectrum acquired in 2015. We continue to focus on financial flexibility and optimizing the capital structure and finance cost.

In a statement, Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia, said:
“This has been another quarter to cap a full year of consistent and competitive performance across our portfolio. Our consolidated revenues for the quarter grew by 5.5% and EBITDA margins expanded to 50.8%, underscoring our focus on all round delivery.

The mobile business revenues were up 9.5% as we saw the full flow through of tariff increase. Airtel continues to have the highest ARPU at Rs 178. Our Homes and enterprise business continue to exhibit very strong growth momentum, reflecting the resilience of our overall portfolio. Our strong balance sheet and cash flows have enabled us to further repay some of our spectrum liabilities ahead of schedule and improve our leverage.

We continue to remain optimistic about the opportunities in the coming years and believe we are well poised as a company for three reasons. First, our ability to execute consistently to a simple strategy of winning with quality customers and delivering the best experience to them. Second, our future proofed business model with massive investments in both infrastructure and digital capabilities. Finally, our financial prudence backed by our strong governance focus.”

CT Bureau