Bharti Airtel narrows loss to Rs 763.2 crore in Q2; revenue at Rs 25,785 crore beats estimate

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Telecom major Bharti Airtel on October 27 reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 763.2 crore for the September quarter of FY21 against a loss of Rs 23,044.90 crore in Q2FY20 and Rs 15,933.1 crore in Q1FY21.

A CNBC-TV18 poll had estimated a profit of Rs 100 crore. The company's consolidated revenue came at Rs 25,785 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2020, which beat a CNBC-TV18 poll estimate of Rs 24,430 crore.

Consolidated EBITDA came at Rs 11,848.3 crore against CNBC-TV18 poll of Rs 10,820 crore while EBITDA margin came at 46 percent against the CNBC-TV18 poll of 44.3 percent.

“Despite being a seasonally weak quarter, we delivered a strong performance with revenue growing at nearly 22 percent YoY. In the mobile segment, we added over about 1.4 crore 4G customers and grew revenues by about 26 percent," said Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia of the company.

Airtel posted its highest ever consolidated quarterly revenues and the company said Indian business delivered strong growth across revenue, margins and customers.

The company's India revenues grew 22 percent YoY; EBITDA margin came at 45.8 percent which was up 4.7 percent YoY. EBIT margin at 13 percent was up 9.8 percent YoY.

The company said its mobile services India revenues grew 26 percent YoY and mobile ARPU grew to Rs 162 against Rs 128 in Q2FY20.

Its 4G data customers increased by 48.1 percent to 15.27 crore compared to the previous year, while traffic increased to 77.3 PB/day against 48.9 PB/day in the corresponding quarter last year, the company said.

Airtel claimed the engagement parameters continued to be the best in industry – average data usage per data sub at 16.0 GBs/month; while voice usage was at 1,005 mins/sub/month.

The company said its overall customer base stood at nearly 44 crore across 16 countries.

Its Africa revenues (in constant currency) grew about 20 percent YoY; EBITDA margin came at 45.3 percent, which was up 1.5 percent YoY, and EBIT margin came at 27.9 percent, which was 2.4 percent higher YoY.

"Our focus on building the most aspirational brand in Indian telecom to win quality customers is delivering results. Our data consumption grew by 58 percent YoY which reflects the strong engagement of customers on our network," Vittal said.