Bharti Airtel, the third-largest telecom operator by subscriber base yesterday reported its largest-ever quarterly net loss for Q2 of the fiscal year 2019-20 on account of provisioning Rs.28,450 crore on the back of the recent Supreme court ruling favouring the DoT’s definition of AGR which brought an end to a 14-year long litigation process between the telecom operators and the government. The shares of Bharti Airtel despite this heavy loss have seen an upward trend due to market speculation that it would stand to gain almost 40% subscribers moving out of VIL if the government does not intervene with relief measures.
In a statement, Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia, said: Despite being a seasonally weak quarter, we witnessed positive revenue growth in Q2 on the back of various initiatives aimed at providing superior differential services through our Thanks platform. We continue to witness strong data traffic growth of ~ 81% Y-o-Y and added ~8 Mn 4G customers on our network during the quarter. We remain committed to strengthening our network and providing a superior experience to our customers.
- The consolidated revenues for Q2’20 at Rs 21,131 crore grew 6.9% Y-o-Y (reported an increase of 4.9%) on an underlying basis.
- Consolidated mobile data traffic at 4,661 PBs in the quarter has registered a healthy Y-o-Y growth of 81%. India revenues for Q2’20 at Rs 15,361 crore have increased by 5.7% Y-o-Y (reported an increase of 3.0%) on an underlying basis.
- Mobile revenues have witnessed a Y-o-Y growth of 7.1%. Mobile data traffic has nearly doubled to 4,497 PBs in the quarter as compared to 2,478 PBs in the corresponding quarter last year.
- Mobile 4G data customers increased by 56.9% to 103.1 Mn from 65.7 Mn in the corresponding quarter last year. Digital TV revenue witnessed a growth of 17.1% Y-o-Y on an underlying basis (a decline of 22.9% on a reported basis due to reporting changes in DTH pursuant to the new tariff order.
- Airtel Business has sustained its performance on a Y-o-Y basis. Consolidated EBITDA at Rs 8,936 crore increased 40.9% Y-o-Y. The consolidated EBITDA margin increased by 10.8% to 42.3% in the quarter as compared to 31.5% in the corresponding quarter last year.
- Consolidated EBIT increased by 85.2% Y-o-Y to Rs 1,993 crore. The Consolidated Net Loss before exceptional items for the quarter stands at Rs 1,123 crore. The Consolidated Net Loss after exceptional items for the quarter stands at Rs 23,045 crore.
