Bharti Airtel reports healthy six-month period to end-September

Bharti Airtel’s H1 results to end-September reflected healthy year-on-year revenue growth of 13.3 per cent and 17.1% growth in EBITDA on a local currency basis, reflecting improved performances from all major segments.

Wireless business in India – which remained the group’s largest profit driver and contributed 56.6 per cent of consolidated EBITDA in H1 – reported year-on-year growth of 17 per cent in reported EBITDA. While adding a modest 4.4 per cent to its customer base, overall average revenue per user (ARPU) increased year-on-year by 8.5 per cent due to successful realisation increases, however quarter-on-quarter overall blended ARPU fell by four per cent mainly due to a seasonality issue. Although data users still only represent 26.2 per cent of total customer base in India, the 24.7 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of data users — and the subsequent 111.8 per cent year-on-year increase in total data usage – also contributed to the overall ARPU growth year-on-year.

Bharti’s international wireless business also reported H1 revenue and EBITDA growth of 11.4 per cent and 15.7 per cent in local currency terms compared to the same period last year. However the impact of rupee depreciation reduced growth to 2.4 per cent and 6.1 per cent in US dollar terms. Africa operations continued on its positive trend and reported a 13 per cent growth in total customers, though this increase was partially offset by a 10.9 per cent decrease in ARPU. Operating cash flow- using EBITDA – capex as a proxy – also stayed positive at about US$266 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 9.5 per cent.