Bharti Airtel announced its 1st quarter results, revenues as per US GAAP was seen higher by 17 per cent YoY at Rs. 99,416 million against Rs. 84,883 reported last year. The Net profit surged 24 per cent to come in at Rs. 25,167 million Vs Rs. 20,250 million in last fiscal. The revenue growth was just 1.3% compared to corresponding quarter whereas Net Profit was higher by 12.4% Q-o-Q.
The company also witnessed the highest ever addition of 8.55 Million users in June quarter. Bharti Airtel just recently crossed the 100 million subscriber base. The EBITDA margins for this quarter was at 41.8 per cent.
Subscriber numbers, ARPU etc:
Bharti Airtel ended the quarter with a mobile subscriber base growth of 9 per cent at 10.24 Crores Vs 9.39 Crores in corresponding quarter. It had a wireless market share of 24 per cent in June end. The subscriber base for other Telemedia services like broadband, IPTV and DTH stood at 28.3 Lacs, out of which 40 per cent were broadband users.
Total prepaid Users were seen at 94.7 per cent of total users compared to 94.2 per cent seen in march end. ARPU(Avergae revenue per user) was down by 9 per cent at Rs. 278 compared to Rs. 305 in corresponding Quarter. AMPU(Average Minutes of Usages per User) was also down 2 per cent at 478 mins compared to 485 mins in Q4.
Revenues Segmentation:
Bharti Airtel’s Non-Voice revenues were stagnant at 14 per cent to Total revenues although SMS revenues saw a slight Jump. The company also witnessed a major jump in Infrastructure services revenues as it is aggressively shares its telecom infrastructure with Other telcos.
Other Indicators:
Total employee strength was seen at 23789 where the no. of customers per employee was 4422. Bharti Airtel now has population coverage in terms of network strength at 82% compared to 74% last year.
The results met Street expectations but the main cause of worry was seen in Q-o-Q numbers and the problem would start to tickle in after few years as the telecom market in India attain saturation levels. The major growth drivers for Bharti Airtel in future would continue to be Mobile and VAS related services along with heavy growth expectations from its Telemedia divisions like DTH and broadband as they currently get higher ARPU’s than the mobile segment.
