Bharti Airtel Shares Q3 Results

In terms of the top line, Bharti Airtel reported 12.63% YoY growth in sales for the Dec-21 quarter at Rs.29,867 crore on a YoY consolidated basis. During the quarter, India mobile services recorded revenue growth of 19% YoY on the strength of higher ARPUs. The Airtel Business revenues scaled up by 13.4%, while homes business grew a robust 40.4%. On a sequential basis, the revenues of Bharti Airtel were up by 5.44%

During the quarter 4G customers of Bharti Airtel increased by 2.99 crore YoY while mobile ARPUs (average revenue per user) increased fairly impressively from Rs.146 to Rs.163. For the Dec-21 quarter, mobile data consumption was up 33.8% while consumption per customer stood at 18.3 GB per month. Bharti Airtel paid Rs.15,519 crore to the government towards deferred spectrum and also declined equity dilution against interest on AGR dues.

Let us now turn to the operating profits of Bharti Airtel for the Dec-21 quarter. On a YoY basis, the operating profits of Bharti were up 56.6% at Rs.6,974 crore. While consolidated EBITDA stood at Rs.14,905 crore for the quarter, the EBITDA margins were robust at 49.9%, signifying a gain of 398 bps YoY. India business, for the first time in its entire history, crossed the Rs.10,000 crore EBITDA mark in the Dec-21 quarter.

Consolidated EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) stood at Rs.6,345 crore while EBIT margins came in at a robust 21.2% at an operating level. Operating margins increased on the back of lower access charges in the quarter, from 16.80% in Dec-20 quarter to 23.35% in the Dec-21 quarter. Operating margins were also higher on a sequential basis by 86 bps. It may be recollected that Google has committed to invest $1 billion into Bharti.

Net profits for the Dec-21 quarter were surprisingly down -2.81% YoY at Rs.830 crore but that was largely due to an exceptional gain in the comparable Dec-20 quarter which artificially depressed the current figure in comparison. During the Dec-20 quarter, Bharti Airtel had booked profits from discontinued operations to the tune of Rs.987 Cr.

This had, incidentally, boosted the base and led to a reduction in PAT growth over Dec-20 quarter. As a result, PAT margins tapered from 3.22% in the Dec-20 quarter to 2.78% in the Dec-21 quarter. The PAT margins were also lower by 122 bps on a sequential basis, compared to the Sep-21 quarter. As of the close of Dec-21 quarter, Bharti Airtel reported 35.6 crore customers in India and a total of 12.6 crore customers in Africa.