Bharti Airtel Q2 net profit up 10% at Rs1,523 crore

The country's top telecom operator Bharti Airtel has reported a 10.1-per cent jump in net profit to Rs1,523 crore for the quarter ended September, bolstered by a sharp growth in mobile data usage.

Bharti Airtel's net profit for the second quarter (June-September 2015-16) increased by 10.1 per cent, a company statement said today.

The company however posted net profit of Rs1,383 crore during the corresponding period last fiscal.

Consolidated revenue for the fiscal second quarter stood at Rs23,836 crore, which is a growth of 6.6 per cent. Consolidated mobile data revenue was at Rs3,806 crore, which grew 49.8 per cent year-on-year, helped by data traffic growth of 76.3 per cent.

Mobile data contributed to 21.5 per cent of Airtel's India revenue compared to 14.5 per cent in the corresponding quarter last year.

The company, however, witnessed a sequential decline in voice minutes in the quarter under review, compared to the preceding quarter. Total minutes on network decreased to 336,002 million, as compared to 342,987 million in April-June period of the current fiscal, 2015-16.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) during the quarter stood at Rs8,265.3 crore, an increase of 6.7 per cent compared to Rs7,749.4 crore in the year-ago period.

"Airtel's revenue growth in India has accelerated to 13.3 per cent in Q2 on an underlying basis, the highest in the last 12 quarters. With the commercial launch of 4G services across 334 towns and roll-out of 3G services in our gap circles, we are now best positioned in the industry to leverage the fast growing data market," Bharti Airtel MD and CEO (India and South Asia) Gopal Vittal said.

Mobile data revenue contributed 21.5 per cent of India revenues, up from 14.5 per cent in the year-ago period. Data average revenue per user (ARPU) increased by Rs42 to Rs193 (year-on-year) in the reported quarter, led by 35.9 per cent increase in data usage per customer.

Airtel, which has 340 million customers across 20 countries, said its churn rate in India has increased to 3.5 per cent for the reported quarter as compared to 3.1 per cent in the year-ago period, primarily on account of competitive pressures but remains the lowest in the industry.

Voice realisation per minute has dropped by 3.11 paise to 34.58 paise in second quarter, compared to 37.69 paise in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.