Airtel Q3 Earnings: Revenues Up 11.4%, EBIDTA Margin Climbs 11.4% In December Quarter

Bharti Airtel, India's second-largest telecommunication giant as per customer base declared its earnings for the third quarter of FY24 on 5th February 2024 evening, . As per the official statements, the consolidated company revenue grew 5.9% year-on-year, surging to Rs. 37.900 crores. Revenues from operations and services in India for the December quarter hiked to Rs. 27,811 crores or 11.4% since the previous year. In India, the EBITDA margin is up by 119 bps at 53.9%, while the EBIT margin grew by 82 bps or 23.4%, compared to the previous year.

After the FYQ3 Airtel results, on 6th February the per share price is floating at Rs. 1,149.3/-, a hike of 3.21% or Rs. 33.85/- higher than the previous day. So far the shares have surged more than 9.35% since the first week of the year 2024. Similarly, the prices are up 28.72% in the last six months with 52-week high-low points of Rs. 1,200/- and Rs. 735/- respectively. The company's market cap stands at Rs. 6.74 lakh crores today, with a P/E ratio of 87.74 however, the company stayed silent for dividends in the previous year.

In addition to this, the company's solid existence in Africa is noticed by the 21% revenue growth yearly, with the EBITDA margin growing 49.4% and EBIT growing 33.4% year on year. The consolidated EBIDTA increased by 7.8% to Rs. 20,044 crores, while the EBITDA margin surged to 52.9% from 52% the previous year. Airtel India's EBITDA margin grew 53.9% from 52.7% yearly. Consolidated EBIT hiked to Rs. 9,844 crores, a 6.3% increase, with a net income of Rs. 2,442 crores for the quarter.

The Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for Airtel in the quarter has increased by Rs. 15/- to reach Rs. 208/- from Rs. 193/- in December 2022, pushed by the initiative on acquiring high-value customers and improved realisations of the company. The total earnings before Income tax of Bharti Airtel for the quarter stood at Rs. 9,844 crores or 26%. The profit before tax for the company stands at Rs. 4,239 crores with a net quarterly income of Rs. 2,442 crores.

Bharti Airtel's customer base for the quarter increased by 2%, while compared to the previous year, it grew almost 7.9%, adding a total customer base of 548 million by the end of calendar year 2023. The post-paid segment has reached strongly to 48.3 million, out of which 28.2 million people are 5G customers with an average data consumption of 22 GB per month. The consolidated capex of Airtel's India and Africa business for the quarter stood at Rs. 9,271 crores.

In the previous month, Bhartil Airtel prepaid its debt to the telecommunication department of India, being the only telecom player making pre-payments ahead of the maturity tenure. A total repayment of Rs. 16,349 crores took place during the year towards deferred spectrum liabilities acquired in the 2015 auction.

Gopal Vittal, MD of Bharti Airtel, for the December quarter earnings, says, "We have delivered yet another quarter of consistent and competitive growth across all our businesses. Revenue from India's business sustained its momentum and grew sequentially by 3%, while the consolidated revenue is impacted by the devaluation of the Nigerian Naira and Malawian Kwacha. The quarter witnessed a strong growth trajectory for the post-paid and homes business, while our DTH business added 388k net adds - the highest in the last 12 quarters. We remain on course with our strategy of premiumization that helped us add 7.4 million 4G/5G customers and exit the quarter with an industry-leading ARPU of Rs. 208. Even at this ARPU, our return on capital employed, however, continues to be low at 9.4%. To ensure industry health, tariff repair is extremely critical."