Bharti Airtel on Monday reported narrowing of its consolidated net loss to Rs 15,084 crore during financial year 2020-21 from Rs 32,183 crore in FY20.
The company's revenue rose 18.8 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 1,00,616 crore during the year, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) stood at Rs 46,139 crore. EBITDA margin expanded 479 basis points YoY to 45.9 per cent.
For January-March quarter, the company reported a net profit of Rs 759 crore as against a net loss of Rs 5,237 crore in the year-ago quarter. Revenue rose 11.9 per cent to Rs 25,747 crore, while EBITDA grew 28.9 per cent to Rs 12,583 crore. EBITDA margin expanded 647 basis points to 48.9 per cent.
Bharti Airtel's India business revenue rose 17.5 per cent to Rs 18,338 crore during the quarter. Led by strong customer additions, mobile services revenue grew 19.1 per cent on a comparable basis. Its average revenue per user (ARPU) for India mobile business stood at Rs 145 during the March quarter as compared with Rs 135 in the year-ago period. It attributed the increase in ARPU to its focus on acquiring quality customers as well as uptrading and upgradation of customers to 4G.
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"The company continues to garner a strong share of the 4G net ads in the market. 4G data customers increased by 31.5 per cent YoY to 179.3 million, an addition of approximately 43.0 million 4G customers over the last 4 quarters," Bharti Airtel said in a statement.
The company said its customer base stood at 35 crore in India, while capital expenditure during the quarter was at Rs 5,141 crore.
"We rolled out additional about 8,300 towers in the quarter, to further expand and strengthen network coverage, ensuring a brilliant experience to our customers. Airtel fortified its strong spectrum portfolio with the acquisition of 355.45 MHz spectrum across Sub GHz, mid band and 2300 MHz bands for Rs 18,699 crore (on bid value) in the latest spectrum auctions," it said.
Airtel Business registered a 9.7 per cent growth during the quarter, driven by demand for connectivity and solutions across global business and domestic businesses, it said.
Revenue for Africa business rose 21.7 per cent in constant currency terms during the quarter under review, while EBITDA margin expanded 389 basis points to 47.8 per cent. As of March 31, Bharti Airtel's overall customer base stood at about 47.1 crore across 16 countries.
Shares of the company closed 1.96 per cent lower at Rs 549.55 on the BSE on Monday.
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