MUMBAI: Bharti Airtel on Monday posted its fourth quarter results for the fourth quarter of financial year 2019-20. While revenue was up seven per cent at Rs 23,723 crore on a quarter-on-quarter basis, it has registered a consolidated loss of Rs 5,237 crore year-on-year. Mobile services revenue has increased 21.8 per cent YoY and 16 per cent quarter to quarter.
Airtel's journey as a digital business continued strongly in Q4’20. The company has over 160 million Monthly Active Users across digital assets – Airtel Thanks, Wynk and X Stream. It has over 1.1 million retailers transacting and making payments every day on our Mitra App.
Today over 60 per cent of its entire business goes through digital channels, and with share of AirtelThanks platform growing strongly to now become the second largest platforms for user payments online.
Digital TV revenue witnessed strong growth of 16.9 per cent YoY on an underlying basis, on the back of strong customer additions.
While overall customer base stood at 423 million across 16 countries, EBITDA stood at Rs 10,326 crore, up 51.7 per cent YoY.
Voice usage per customer increased to 965 million against 898 million for the telecom service operator, showing an increase of 7.5 per cent quarter to quarter.
The mobile ARPU in India business was at Rs 154 against Rs 135 QoQ, a growth of 14 per cent.
The company had posted a profit of Rs 107.2 crore in the same period a year ago. It registered a consolidated revenue of Rs 23,722.7 crore during the reported quarter against Rs 20,602.2 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2018-19.
The company has undertaken a capex investment of Rs 25,359 crore on a consolidated basis during the year to ensure superior customer experience besides front ending some investment to ensure seamless services during the ongoing pandemic.
Airtel Business witnessed a double digit revenue growth of 12.4 per cent YoY led by increased focus on connecting large enterprises, SMEs besides providing innovative solutions. Homes business continues to remain resilient and shows significant long-term promise in the wake of the new normal of work from home and social distancing established post the Covid2019 situation.
Gopal Vittal, MD-CEO, India & South Asia, said: “These are unprecedented times for every one across the world as we battle the impact of Covid2019 and its consequent impact on livelihoods. Even in this difficult time, it is our investments in network technologies coupled with our culture of customer obsession that has allowed us to keep the nation connected and serve our customers. It is abundantly clear today that telecom has played an essential role in keeping the country going. We are therefore hopeful that the government will implement the recommendations of the TRAI and the intent of the New Telecom Policy and bring down the high levels of regulatory levies and taxes that the sector is subjected to. The quarter gone by saw healthy revenue growth of 14.4 per cent YoY with mobile business growing at 21.8 per cent. This was driven by two factors - sustained momentum of 4G customer additions of over 12.5 million coupled with improved tariffs. We continue to witness strong data traffic growth of 74.1 per cent YoY. Going forward we remain committed to delivering a best in class customer experience even as we leverage our platform to build new revenue streams.”
