Bharti Airtel MD Gopal Vittal highlighted rising ARPU in India in its fiscal Q3 2024 (the period to 31 December 2023) but complained even at a higher level its return on capital remains low, pointing to the need for further tariff increases.
In an earnings statement, Vittal referred to a critical need to amend tariffs as being essential to the overall health of India’s mobile industry.
Net profit grew 54 per cent year-on-year to INR24.4 billion ($293.8 million) and revenue 5.9 per cent to INR379 billion.
Domestic revenue grew 11.4 per cent to INR278.8 billion.
ARPU rose 7.8 per to INR208.
Its subscriber base increased 4 per cent to 345.6 million.
The operator underscored gains in the post-paid segment with net additions of 900,000, excluding IoT connections.
Average monthly data usage rose 8.2 per cent to 22GB.
Africa revenue increased 21 per cent to $1.3 billion.
ARPU grew 8.8 per cent to $2.60.
Mobile subscribers increased 9.1 per cent to 151.2 million.
Data consumption rose 19 per cent to 5.5GB a month.
Airtel Money revenue grew 33.4 per cent to $230 million, with active users rising 19.5 per cent to 37.5 million and ARPU up 9.1 per cent to $2.10.
Group capex for the first nine months of fiscal 2024 was up 30 per cent to INR248.6 billion.
It added around 45,000 towers during 2023 for a total of 307,663 sites.
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