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India's second-largest telco Bharti Airtel reported a massive 164% YoY jump in profits as profit for the quarter ended in March 2022 came in at Rs 2,008 crores as against Rs 759 crores for the corresponding quarter last year.
The profits posted by the telecom were significantly higher than the estimated figure of Rs 1,580 crores. The company's revenues grew 5.4% QoQ to Rs 31,500 crores; lower than estimates, but up 22.3% YoY. However, the company posted an EBITDA of Rs 15,998 crores, up 7.33%, resulting in an EBITDA margin of 50.8% as the company was strongly assisted by tariff hikes.
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The telco's Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) grew 9.2% QoQ and 22.76% YoY as the ARPU for the quarter in question came in at Rs 178. In comparison, Reliance Jio posted an ARPU of Rs 167.6 crores for the quarter that ended in March 2022.
Its data usage per customer stood at 18.8 GB per month, lower than Reliance Jio's 19.7 GB. However, Airtel voice minutes per user per month increased 2.1% to 1,083 minutes, higher than Jio. The monthly churn of subscribers declined to 2.8% as the company's total subscribers grew 1% to 326 million with 63.9% of their total user base comprising 4G users.
“Airtel continues to have the highest ARPU at Rs 178. Our homes and enterprise businesses 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,” said Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia.
The company said that it managed to pay Rs 8,815 crores in prepayment of deferred spectrum liabilities referring to the 2015 spectrum auction. The Board of the telecom company has recommended a dividend of Rs 3 per share (FV Rs 5) and Rs 0.75 per share for partly paid-up equity shares as final dividend for FY21-22. Gopal Vittal has been re-appointed as MD & CEO of the teleco for another term of 5 years.
After the announcement of the results, the stock opened up almost 2% at Rs 721 per share. However, the bears took over the stock as the dragged the stock down 3.45% as the stock closed at Rs 696.15 per share. Today, the stock witnessed a full gap down opening and currently trades around Rs 684 per share.
Article by Aman Agarwal.
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