Data revenue uplifts Airtel net profit 10 pc to Rs 1,523 cr

Country's largest telco Bharti Airtel today posted a 10.1 per cent rise in its net profit at Rs 1,523 crore for the three months to September, helped by higher mobile data usage and robust growth in customer base.
With more people accessing high speed Internet on smartphones, Airtel's mobile data revenue grew 49.8 per cent to Rs 3,806 crore and data traffic jumped 76.3 per cent, Airtel said in a statement.
The mobile data revenue consists 16 per cent of the total revenues for the quarter compared to 11.1 per cent in the corresponding period last fiscal, it said.
To further ramp up its 3G and 4G infrastructure, the company is open to spend an additional USD 200-400 million in the current fiscal. Airtel had earlier announced its capex guidance for the current year to be USD 3 billion.

The total revenue rose 4.3 per cent to Rs 23,836 crore during the period under review against Rs 22,845 crore in the same three-month period a year ago.
Airtel's total subscriber base across 20 countries in the quarter rose to 340 million, against 303 million a year ago, the company said.

The company further said that its churn rate in India has increased to 3.5 per cent for the reported quarter as compared to 3.1 per cent, primarily on account of competitive pressures but remains the lowest in the industry.
Voice realisation per minute, however, dropped by 3.11 paise to 34.58 paise in the second quarter, compared to 37.69 paise in the corresponding quarter last fiscal. Voice ARPU also declined to Rs 140 from Rs 158 last year.

The company also witnessed a sequential decline in voice minutes in the quarter under review, compared to the preceding quarter. Total minutes on network decreased to 336,002 million, as compared to 342,987 million in April-June period of the current fiscal, 2015-16.
"Airtel's revenue growth in India has accelerated to 13.3 per cent in Q2 on an underlying basis, the highest in the last 12 quarters. With the commercial launch of 4G services across 334 towns and roll-out of 3G services in our gap circles, we are now best positioned in the industry to leverage the fast growing data market," Bharti Airtel MD and CEO (India and South Asia) Gopal Vittal said.

Vittal added that there has been a marginal pressure on voice pricing in the reported quarter and the competitive intensity continues to be unabated not just by the smaller players but larger players as well.
Bharti Airtel stock closed at 351.90 apiece, down 1.91 per cent on the BSE, in line with overall sluggishness in the market.