Telecom operator Bharti Airtel Ltd on Tuesday reported a consolidated net loss of ₹1,035 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, compared with a profit of ₹86.2 crore a year earlier.
Bharti Airtel’s consolidated revenue from operations increased 8.5 per cent YoY to ₹21,947 crore during the October-December 2019 quarter. In the same period last year 2018, the revenue was ₹20,231 crore.
The average revenue per user (ARPU), the key metric of profitability for telecom companies, improved to ₹135 from ₹128 in the September quarter and ₹104 per month in the same quarter last year. 4G subscriber addition during the quarter at 2.1 crore was highest ever.
Mobile data traffic rose to 5,166 petabyte (a unit of information equal to one thousand million million (1015) or, strictly, 250 bytes.) in the quarter compared with 2,996 petabyte in the corresponding quarter last year, were among the key positives during the December quarter.
The telecom operator had recorded as a liability or provision an aggregate of ₹34,260 crore as on September quarter, of which ₹28,450 crore was recorded in the previous quarter as an exceptional item.
Airtel’s combined revenues increased 10.5 per cent YoY for Q3 at ₹21,947 crore, while India revenues grew 9.7 per cent to ₹15,797 crore. The combined mobile data traffic registered a 73 per cent YoY growth, the company said in a statement.
“While tariff revision undertaken in December 2019 is a welcome step towards repairing the financial health of the industry, we believe tariffs must go up further for enabling the industry to invest in emerging technologies,” Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, Bharti Airtel said in a press release.
“We added 21 million 4G customers to our mobile network and delivered superior value to our customers through the Airtel Thanks program. Data traffic saw strong growth of 72 per cent. We are on track to shut down our 3G networks across India and re-farm the 900 and 2,100 band spectrum to further boost our 4G footprint to serve the surging demand for high speed data.”
Gopal Vittal