Bharti Airtel Q3 earnings: Net profit surges six times, revenue at Rs 45,129 crore

Bharti Airtel reported a stellar set of earnings for the quarter ended December 2024 quarter. Consolidated net profit zoomed 505% to Rs 14,781 crore in the last quarter against Rs 2442.2 crore in the December 2023 quarter. The company logged exceptional gains of Rs 7,545 crore, leading to a huge surge in Q3 profit. "This quarter has seen exceptional items primarily due to consolidation of Indus Towers," said the firm.

Revenue rose 19% to Rs 45,129 crore in Q3 against Rs 37,899.5 crore revenue in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. The company attributed a surge in revenue to strong underlying momentum in India, sustained constant currency growth in Africa and Indus Tower Ltd consolidation effective November 19, 2024. 

Consolidated EBITDA came at Rs 24,880 crore, rising 24.1% from Rs 20,044 crore a year ago. EBITDA margins came at 55.1% in the last quarter against 52.9% a year ago. 

Earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) rose 33.1% YoY to Rs 13,126 crore against Rs 9844 crore in Q3 of the previous fiscal. 

India business reported quarterly revenues of Rs 34,654 crore rising 24.6% YoY and up 9.8% QoQ. 

Mobile services India revenues climbed 21.4% YoY, led by tariff repair, strong smartphone customer additions and underlying mix improvement. Airtel Business revenues rose 8.7% YoY. Homes business maintained its growth momentum with revenues climbing 18.7% YoY. Net customer additions reached new highs of 674K led by both FTTH and FWA. 

Gopal Vittal, Vice-Chairman and MD, said: “We delivered another consistent quarter with consolidated revenue of 45,129 crores. Indus Towers consolidation is effective this quarter. India revenue (excluding Indus) grew by 4.8% sequentially. Africa maintained strong constant currency sequential growth trajectory of 5.6%. 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."

In a note on net exceptional gain, the company said, "During the quarter ended December 31 , 2024, net exceptional gain of Rs. 75,456 million comprises of gain of Rs. 143,225 million arising from business combination of Indus (comprising of gain on fair valuation of group's existing stake in Indus of Rs. 107,025 million, and on account of reversal of right to use assets and lease liabilities related to Indus); gain of Rs. 1,285 million on account of reversal of provision created for input tax credit on passive infrastructure services; net foreign exchange gain of Rs. 11,936 million due to currency appreciation in group subsidiaries; charge of Rs. 63,586 million on regulatory levies and charge of Rs. 17,404 million on account of impairment of intangible assets."

The earnings were announced after market hours on Thursday. Bharti Airtel stock ended 2.47% lower at Rs 1619.55 on BSE. Market cap of the telco stood at Rs 9.23 lakh crore.