Bharti Airtel reversed a string of year-on-year declines in quarterly profit during its fiscal Q4 and registered growth in its domestic mobile business, which had been hit hard by a damaging price war.

It booked a 29.3 per cent year-on-year rise in net profit to INR1.07 billion ($15.4 million) in the quarter ending 31 March, due to a one-off gain of INR20.2 billion related to the reassessment of levies. It also booked an exceptional charge of INR1.4 billion relating to a network refarming and upgrade programme.

Total revenue rose 6.2 per cent year-on-year to INR206 billion, with mobile service revenue in India increasing 4.3 per cent to INR106 billion and rising 16.5 per cent to INR55.1 billion in Africa.

Its South Asia mobile business was flat at INR1.12 billion, while tower services revenue fell 3.5 per cent to INR30 billion. Digital TV services sales were up 9.5 per cent to INR10.5 billion

In a shift from the past, the company didn’t post its results on its website, only filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange. The statement did not reveal subscriber numbers or ARPU.

Despite an apparent return to form in fiscal Q4, for the full fiscal year Bharti Airtel’s net profit fell 62.7 per cent to INR4.1 billion.

Africa
Airtel Africa’s fiscal Q4 statement showed it posted a net profit of $83 million versus a $49 million loss in the March 2018 quarter. Revenue of $781 million was up 6.1 per cent year-on-year.

The company, with operations in 14 countries in Africa, added 9.5 million mobile subscribers to end March with 98.9 million. ARPU slipped 3.1 per cent year-on-year to $1.70.

Average data usage rose 43 per cent to 1.38GB per customer.

Airtel Money revenue increased 53.1 per cent year-on-year to $70 million, with transaction value rising 22 per cent to $6.89 billion.