Airtel registers 40% jump in Q1 profits

NEW DELHI: Telecom operator Bharti Airtel has recorded about 40 per cent rise in its net profit to Rs 1,554.3 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, FY16, as against Rs 1,108.5 crore over the same quarter last year.

The profit was mainly driven by sale of mobile tower assets and boom in data usage.

“The gross sale proceeds of the tower disposals during the quarter are USD 1,340 million, of which USD 243 million has been received on or before June 30, 2015. The remaining USD 1,097 million…has been netted off in the computation of Net Debt,” Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

The net debt of the company stood at Rs 68,134.5 crore.

The company’s consolidated total sales grew by 2.9 per cent to Rs 23,680.8 crore, as against Rs 23,005.5 crore in the first quarter of 2014-15.

“Our customer base has continued to steadily expand. Mobile minutes and data traffic have grown by 7.4 per cent and 83.4 per cent respectively. I am pleased that our revenue growth is broad based across all business units, especially the domestic enterprise and corporate segment,” Bharti Airtel MD and CEO, India and South Asia Gopal Vittal said.

India revenues reported a growth of 10 per cent, y-o-y basis, led by 22.2 per cent in Airtel business (B2B) and 15.8 per cent in Digital TV.

The company saw a dip of 11 per cent in average spent per user in the voice segment to Rs 148 from Rs 166 in India. It registered a decline from its Africa business with net loss before exception item widening to Rs 976.8 crore in the reported quarter.