Bharti Airtel has reported another quarter of results down sharply due to the price pressure and regulatory cuts in the Indian mobile market. The operator said it will continue to invest heavily in the new fiscal year to maintain its market position, after record capex in the past year.
For the fiscal fourth quarter to March, revenues were down 10.5 percent to INR 196.3 billion, and EBITDA fell 12.0 percent to INR 70.3 billion. The EBITDA margin dropped to 35.8 percent from 36.4 a year earlier. Net profit plunged 78 percent to INR 829 million.
Capital expenditure over the full year rose 35 percent to INR 268.2 billion, leading to a 77 percent fall in operating cash flow (EBITDA-capex) to INR 36.3 billion. In Q4 alone, capex was up 65 percent to INR 62.8 billion, led by spending on the Indian mobile network. After declaring a final dividend of INR 2.5 per share, the full-year pay-out reached INR 5.34, up from INR 1 a year earlier, and the company said the amount is a complete handover of subsidiary dividends.
The intense competition in the Indian market led to a 20 percent fall in consumer mobile revenues in Q4 to INR 103.5 billion. EBITDA dropped 39 percent to INR 29.4 billion, and the margin declined to 28.4 percent from 36.9 a year earlier. Airtel said the industry continued to see "below cost, artificially suppressed pricing", compounded by the cut to international termination rates in the past quarter. Weakness in consumer mobile was offset by 11 percent revenue growth in digital TV to INR 9.59 billion, and 9 percent growth in business revenues to INR 28.20 billion.
The company still added over 14 million new mobile customers in Q4, for a total of 304.19 million, up 11.2 percent from a year earlier. Churn slowed to 2.8 percent, while ARPU was down 5.9 percent on a quarterly basis and 26.7 percent lower year-on-year at INR 116. Data customers were up 50 percent year-on-year to over 86 million after record additions in Q4, and data traffic jumped 584 percent to 1.54 trillion MB, or an average 6.6 GB per customer.
In Africa, Airtel added 5.1 million new customers in the quarter, helped by over 3 million from the takeover of Tigo Rwanda, to take its total base to 89.26 million, up 16.3 percent from a year earlier. Churn was stable at 5.1 percent, while ARPU dipped to USD 3. Data customers grew to just under 25 million, and data traffic was up 88 percent year-on-year to 69.7 billion MB.
Profitability continued to improve in Africa, with EBITDA up 56 percent to USD 284 million. Revenues rose 11 percent at constant exchange rates to USD 791 million. Capex jumped 81 percent to USD 250 million, leading to a drop in operating cash flow to USD 34 million.
