Bharti Airtel MD Gopal Vittal credited a focus on subscriber additions for gains in its fiscal Q4 2023 (ending 31 March), with profit up despite high domestic capex as its Africa and mobile businesses fared well.

In its earning release, Vittal highlighted the net addition of 7.4 million 4G customers during the period and reiterated a goal of covering all major towns and villages with 5G by the end of calendar 2023.

“We are also pleased to see the increased velocity of our digital deliveries across all parts of our business”, Vittal commented, pointing to a focus on related platforms and “talent”.

Net profit attributable to owners of the parent company grew 50 per cent year-on-year to INR30.1 billion ($365.3 million), with revenue up 14 per cent to INR360.1 billion.

Mobile service revenue in India increased 12 per cent to INR195.5 billion, with its user base up 2.9 per cent to 335.4 million, 224.1 million of which were 4G, up 11.6 per cent.

Average data usage per customer rose 8 per cent to 20.8GB a month.

Airtel Business revenue increased 14.5 per cent to INR47.9 billion and Home Business 25.2 per cent to INR11 billion.

Fiscal 2023 capex was up 37 per cent to INR280.6 billion and its base station count rose by 80,200 to 832,000 sites.

In Africa, revenue in fiscal Q4 grew 19 per cent to $1.4 billion on voice and data gains.

Mobile subscribers grew 9 per cent to just over 140 million, with data users up 17 per cent to 54.6 million.

Average monthly data consumption rose 26.6 per cent to 4.7GB.

Mobile Money revenue grew 28.9 per cent to $187 million.

Active Money customers increased 20.4 per cent to 31.5 million.

Capex increased 14 per cent to $748 million, with close to 15,400 broadband base stations added for a total of 107,700 sites.