Bharti Airtel on Monday batted for another industry-wide tariff hike, arguing that ROCE in the sector continue to lag in India.
New Delhi: Bharti Airtel has called for another industry-wide tariff hike, citing that returns on capital in the sector are still low in India. In the earnings statement, Bharti Airtel MD Gopal Vittal stated that the telecom company’s balance sheet remains strong, supported by cash generation and ongoing debt reduction. Notably, Bharti Airtel prepaid another tranche of Rs 8,465 crore in high-cost spectrum dues during the July-September quarter.
“At the same time, we believe that industry needs further tariff repair for sustained investments given that ROCE for India is still only 11 per cent,” Vittal said.
It is worth noting that in the last two years the telecom operators increased their tariffs price by 40 percent. Airtel reported its consolidated revenues were at Rs 41,473 crore for the July-September quarter.
The telecom operator asserted that its earnings were driven by strong momentum in India and growth in constant currency in Africa.
From July through September quarter, the consolidated EBITDA hit Rs 22,021 crore, a stellar 12 precent growth from last year, resulting in an EBITDA margin of 53.1 precent. In India, the company’s revenues clocked in at Rs 31,561 crore during this time, showing a healthy rise of 16.9 precent compared to the previous year. Mobile revenues enjoyed an 18.5 precent ascend from last year, courtesy of tariff hikes and ongoing efforts to improve the customer base quality.
Bharti Airtel claimed that it continues to deliver industry-leading Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) growth. ARPU for the quarter stood at Rs 233 as compared to Rs 203 in the same quarter of last year.
During the quarter, the telecom operator rolled out an additional 5,000 towers and 15,200 mobile broadband stations in the quarter to enhance connectivity and provide a superior network experience.
Airtel has taken the lead in India with a first-of-its-kind spam detection system powered by AI, a move towards combating prevalent spam issues. This novel telecom service, a rarity among providers, is geared to alert users about possible spam calls and texts in real time. The best part? It’s absolutely free, and it kicks in automatically for every Airtel customer, needing no special requests or app download. The initiative comes as a countermeasure against a recent surge in annoying promo calls and texts from unknown marketers.
“Our focus on winning quality customers and driving premiumization has helped us add 4.2 Mn smartphone customers. We continue to expand our Wifi coverage with FWA offerings to over 2,000 cities. We continue to invest in our digital businesses to diversify portfolio strength and drive long-term growth,” Vittal said in the earnings report.
“Airtel also continues to invest in a future-ready digital network to deliver brilliant customer experience – we launched India’s first AI-powered, network-based spam detection solution to solve the endemic problem of spam calls and messages. Our 5G network has once again received validation from Open signal – Airtel was awarded all the five awards on 5G network experience,” Vittal added.
(With ANI Inputs)
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