Airtel Africa impacted by falling voice ARPU in year to end-March

India’s largest mobile operator Bharti Airtel reported that its net income almost doubled for the fiscal year ending March 31, maintaining the growth momentum from Q3 when its profit jumped 135 per cent.

Its profit rose 87 per cent to INR51.8 billion (US$811 million) for the year, with revenue rising 7.3 per cent to INR920 billion. India turnover increased 12 per cent to INR645 billion, with mobile representing 80 per cent of that. Non-voice revenue accounted for 23.7 per cent of mobile revenue – up from 17.4 per cent a year ago.

The company saw sharp gains in data revenue across all regions, but continued pressure on voice pushed aggregated ARPU down except in India. Mobile data turnover in Q4 grew 60 per cent from the previous year.

Airtel, which has operations in 20 countries, said its customer base increased by almost 29 million to 324.4 million.

The company’s subscriber base in 17 African countries grew 10 per cent to 76.2 million, with data customers increasing 30 per cent to 36 million. Non-voice revenue accounted for a quarter of turnover.

Data ARPU rose five per cent, but voice ARPU fell 15 per cent, pushing overall ARPU down 20 per cent to US$4.40. Total revenue from the region fell one per cent to INR269 billion.

The company’s MD and CEO for Africa, Christian de Faria, said Airtel Africa grew revenues by 7.5 per cent in constant currency terms during FY14-15 amidst rather tough economic conditions.

There its customer base grew by 6.8 million and the Airtel Money customer base expanded by 2.7 million. “With 3G operations now in all 17 countries and with 3,088 new 3G sites, data revenues have increased by 61.3 per cent in constant currency terms,” he said.

Airtel’s capex last fiscal year increased 76 per cent to INR186 billion. India accounted for 63 per cent of the total, with capex increasing 94 per cent from the previous year. There it added almost 8,000 base stations, taking its total to nearly 150,000 – one-third of which are 3G.

EBITDA margin rose 1.7 points to 34.2 per cent.