Bharti Airtel Q1 profit dips 31% to Rs 1,462 crore

New Delhi: Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Wednesday reported around 31 percent decline in consolidated net profit at Rs 1,462 crore for the first quarter of 2016-17 mainly due to high capital expenditure during the period.

The company had reported a net profit of Rs 2,113.2 crore in the same period a year ago.

"Net Income for the quarter stands at Rs 1,462 crore compared to Rs 2,113 crore in corresponding quarter last year. Q1'16 Net Income of Rs 2,113 crore has been re-instated to Ind-AS from previously reported IFRS figures which includes an exceptional gain of Rs 556 crore on account of this reinstatement," Airtel said in a statement.

As per IFRS format, the net profit was Rs 1,554.3 crore in April-June 2015-16.

Total consolidated income from operations of Airtel in the reported quarter increased by 7.9 per cent to Rs 25,572.9 crore from Rs 23,680.8 crore in the year-ago period.

The consolidated revenues in the reported quarter grew on an underlying basis, adjusted for Africa divested operating unit and tower assets sale, the statement said.

Consolidated mobile data revenues at Rs 4,640 crore grew by 34.1 per cent on year-on-year basis.

Its capital expenditure spiked 23 per cent year-on-year to Rs 4,925 crore in the quarter under review.

Airtel said that its India revenues for in the reported quarter grew by 10.3 per cent at Rs 19,155 crore compared to corresponding period of 2015-16 due to healthy growth of 9.1 percent in Mobile, 11 per cent in Homes Services, 22.2 percent in Digital TV and 10.4 per cent in Airtel Business on yearly basis.

"The year has begun well with revenue growth of 10.3 percent Y-o-Y and continued revenue market share gains. In continuation of our Project Leap announcement, we have now transparently opened up our entire mobile network to our customers," Bharti Airtel MD and CEO for India and South Asia Gopal Vittal said.

In constant currency (as on March 1, 2016) terms, Airtel Africa revenues adjusted for the impact of divested operating unit and tower assets grew by 2 per cent on y-o-y basis.

In last 2 years, Bharti Airtel has undertaken tower assets sales in 11 countries (with 9 closed and settled and 2 to be closed shortly) and divested 2 country telecom operations (Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone) - for a sum total consideration of USD 3.25 billion (Rs 21,947.25 crore), the company said.

Airtel Africa data revenues grew by 31.2 per cent at Rs 1039.96 crore (USD 154 million) due to increase in data customer base by 26 per cent and traffic by 106.2 per cent. The total customer base of Airtel in Africa, however, declined by 1.7 per cent to 76.9 million at the end of reported quarter from 78.3 million a year ago.

Data ARPU of Airtel Africa increased to USD 3.2 from USD 3.1 in the corresponding quarter last year.

Data revenues now contribute to 16.5 per cent of overall Africa revenues compared to 12.9 per cent in the corresponding quarter last year, Airtel said.

"Airtel Africa registered organic revenue growth of 3.8 per cent y-o-y despite headwinds due to implementation of stringent KYC norms in a few countries. With over 21 per cent of our customer now using data, volumes have more than doubled. Airtel Money continues to lead with transaction values growing over 62 per cent y-o-y," Airtel Africa Executive Chairman Christian de Faria said.

Bharti Airtel had over 357 million customers across its operations at the end of June 2016.