New Delhi, Feb 6 (UNI) Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Thursday announced 121 percent year-on-year jump in consolidated net income (before exceptional items) at Rs 5,514 crore during the third quarter of current financial year.
Bharti Airtel posted consolidated quarterly revenues of Rs 45,129 crore, up 19.1 percent YoY driven by strong underlying momentum in India, sustained constant currency growth in Africa and Indus Tower Ltd consolidation effective November 19, 2024, the company said in a regulatory filing with the stock exchanges.
India business quarterly revenues stood at Rs 34,654 crore, up 24.6 percent YoY, backed by residual flow through impact of tariff repair in mobile segment, and strong momentum in Homes business and impact of Indus Towers consolidation, the company said.
We continue to deliver industry leading Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) growth. ARPU for the quarter stood at Rs 245 as compared to Rs 208 in Q3’24. We further strengthened our leadership position in post-paid segment with sustained momentum in net adds of 0.6 Mn in Q3’25 thereby reaching a customer base of 25.3 Mn. Our market share in smartphone segment saw continued improvement with addition of 25.2 Mn, increase of 10.3 percent YoY, the company said.
In a statement, Gopal Vittal, Vice-Chairman and MD, said “We delivered another consistent quarter with consolidated revenue of Rs 45,129 crores. Indus Towers consolidation is effective this quarter. India revenue (excluding Indus) grew by 4.8 percent sequentially. Africa maintained strong constant currency sequential growth trajectory of 5.6 percent. India mobile delivered strong performance led by residual flow-through of tariff repair and underlying levers of premiumization.
“We reported another quarter of industry leading ARPU growth to reach Rs 245. We added 6.5 Mn smartphone users underpinned by our focus on acquiring quality customers and portfolio premiumization. Homes business saw further step up in customer additions with acceleration of FWA expansion. Airtel Business delivered stable performance but continues to remain challenged. We are in the middle of comprehensive re-tooling of our Airtel Business portfolio by stepping-up investments in digital services across Cloud, Security and IoT while shedding very low margin commodity voice and wholesale business.
This is likely to impact the top line of this business in the coming quarters but will have an insignificant impact on the margins,” he added.
Company’s balance sheet remains solid, supported by robust cash generation, prudent capital allocation and continued deleveraging. During the quarter, company prepaid another tranche of Rs 3,626 crore of high-cost spectrum dues. At the same time, we believe the industry needs further tariff repair to ensure sustained investments and long term value creation, he said.
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