Bharti Airtel posts consolidated net loss of Rs 2,866 crore in Q1

New Delhi: Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Thursday posted a consolidated net loss of Rs 2,866 crore loss for the first quarter ended June 30, 2019 as against a net profit of Rs 97 crore in the same quarter previous year.

The company's consolidated total revenues rose at  4.7 percent year on year to Rs 20,738 crore, the company said in a BSE filing. The company had posted consolidated total revenue of Rs 19,799 crore in the same quarter previous year.

Airtel said that its overall customer base stands at 404 million across 16 countries. Indian Mobile ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) increased to Rs 129 in the quarter.

“Mobile revenues have witnessed a Y-o-Y growth of 3.7 percent. Mobile ARPU has increased to Rs 129 during the quarter. Mobile data traffic has nearly doubled to 3,904 PBs in the quarter as compared to 2,003 PBs in the corresponding quarter last year. Mobile 4G data customers increased by 63.3% to 95.2 Mn from 58.3 Mn in the corresponding quarter last year,” Airtel in a statement said.

Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel said, “The first quarter of the year has begun with a healthy and equitable growth across all our lines of businesses. Headline pricing remained stable, albeit at low levels.”

“We remain obsessed about network experience. As a result, we have re-farmed spectrum from 3G networks to 4G across both the 900as well as 2100bands and begun the process of shutting down 3G networks in India. This has enabled us to deliver improved indoor coverage as well as enhance our capacities. Our underlying operational efficiency and customer-first mindset keeps us on track to grow our market share,” he added.