Bharti Airtel Ltd posted a consolidated net loss of₹2,866 crore in the fiscal-first quarter, against a net profit of₹97 crore in the same period last year, as it incurred an exceptional expenditure of ₹1,400 crore amidst a bruising tariff war with rival Reliance Jio. This is the first quarterly loss for the company in 14 years.
Bharti Airtel’s consolidated revenue from operations grew 4.7% year-on-year to ₹20,738 crore in the June quarter, from 19,799 crore a year ago. Revenue from India wireless business grew 4.1% year-on-year to ₹10,724 crore.
In comparison, Reliance Jio generated ₹11,679 crore in operating revenue in the June quarter, beating Bharti Airtel on this metric. Last week, Jio, for the first time, surpassed Vodafone Idea Ltd, which posted a revenue of ₹11,269.9 crore, despite having more subscribers than Jio.
With this, Jio is now the number one telco in terms of revenue.
The results underscore the sustained struggle of Bharti Airtel and other telecom operators in India to grow profits despite recording higher data and voice consumption. Mobile data traffic has nearly doubled to 3,904 petabytes in Q1, from 2,003 petabytes in the corresponding quarter last year.
Consolidated EBITDA improved 24.2% year-on-year to ₹8,493 crore.
Airtel’s consolidated net debt was ₹1.16 trillion as of June end.
However, the silver lining for the company is that its average revenue per user from India mobile services rose to ₹129 in the quarter, from ₹123 in the preceding March quarter. This is the highest across telcos. Jio’s ARPU for the June 2019 quarter was at ₹122 and Vodafone Idea was ₹108.
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