Data traffic grows fourfold for Airtel but revenues continue to fall

Key Highlights

• Data traffic has grown fourfold to to 784 billion MBs .
• Airtel's ARPU stood at Rs 145 for the quarter.
• Airtel's profit for the quarter stood at Rs 586.1 crore.

India’s largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel on Tuesday announced its second quarter results ended September 30. The company reported consolidated revenues of Rs 21,777 crore.

“The consolidated revenues for Q2’18 at Rs 21,777 crore, Y-o-Y drop of 10.4% (reported drop of 11.7%) on an underlying basis (viz. adjusted for Africa / Bangladesh divested operating units and tower assets sale),” the company said.

Its India operations continued to suffer as revenues dropped 13% to Rs 16,728 crore on an year-on-year basis. The company said the decline was ‘primarily led by mobile drop of 16.8% Y-o-Y.

Airtel's profit for the quarter stood at Rs 586.1 crore which was lower by 63%.

Average revenue per user (ARPU) fell 6% to Rs 145 in Q2 FY18. It was Rs 188 at the end of Q2 FY17.

The company said its consolidated net debt has increased to Rs 91,480 crore from Rs 87,840 crore in the previous quarter. 

“The financial stress in the industry continues due to double digit revenue decline and will be further accentuated by the reduction in IUC rates in the next quarter,”Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India and South Asia, said.

However the company said its mobile data traffic has increased fourfold.

“Mobile data traffic has grown fourfold to 784 billion MBs in the quarter as compared to 178 billion MBs in the corresponding quarter last year. Mobile broadband customers increased by 33.6% to 55.2 million from 41.3 million in the corresponding quarter last year,” Airtel said.