Bharti Airtel reported revenues for its fiscal first quarter to June of INR 236.7 billion, up 3.1 percent from a year earlier. Growth was led by mobile data services, up 56.9 percent to INR 34.6 billion as data traffic grew 86.5 percent over the same period. EBITDA increased 6.4 percent to INR 82.6 billion, and the margin rose 1.1 percent points to 34.9 percent, driven by improved profitability in India. EBIT was up 14.2 percent to INR 42.2 billion, and net profit rose 40.2 percent to INR 15.5 billion, as higher interest costs and forex losses were offset by a gain of INR 4.6 billion on towers disposals. Capital expenditure was stable year-on-year at INR 39.9 billion, while operating cash flow rose 13 percent to INR 42.7 billion.
In its home market India, revenues rose 10 percent year-on-year to INR 173.7 billion, as 22 percent growth in the business segment and 16 percent higher digital TV revenues added to an 8 percent rise in mobile service revenue. Mobile data revenue was up 67.3 percent to INR 26.1 billion. The data customer base grew 25.8 percent to 49.5 million, and data traffic was up 83.4 percent, while data ARPU increased by INR 42 to INR 181, on a 43 percent rise in average customer data usage to 706 MB. Data accounted for 19.2 percent of mobile revenues in India, up from 12.4 percent in the same quarter last year.
Airtel finished the quarter with a total 230.7 million mobile customers in India, up by 2 percent from March and 10 percent more year-on-year. ARPU was stable on a sequential basis at INR 198 and down 2 percent from a year earlier. Airtel added over 4,000 3G sites to its network in the quarter, for a total of nearly 53,000. Total population coverage with mobile services was stable, at 86.7 percent.
In the rest of South Asia, Airtel had just over 9 million customers at the end of June, up by 5 percent from March. ARPU fell 1 percent from the previous quarter and 13 percent year-on-year to INR 147. Data customers continue to increased, up by 11 percent from March to 2.4 million, while data traffic grew 90 percent year-on-year to almost 4 million MB. Total quarterly revenues fell 11 percent year-on-year to INR 3.9 billion, and Airtel moved to an EBITDA loss of INR 476 million from a profit of INR 233 million a year ago. Capex increased 22 percent to INR 992 million.
Africa revenues grew by 1.0 percent year-on-year to USD 989 million, while EBITDA was down 11 percent to USD 203 million. Airtel reduced capex by 6 percent to USD 150 million, with the number of 3G sites rising by 711 compared to March to 10,722. Data traffic more than doubled compared to a year ago, as the data customer base increased 32 percent to 13.0 million. Data revenues totaled USD 128 million, up 48.5 percent year-on-year, and accounted for 12.9 percent of total African revenues. Total mobile customers in Africa increased by just over 2 million in the three months to 78.3 million at the end of June. ARPU of USD 4.3 was little changed versus Q1 and down 10 percent from a year earlier. The active Airtel Money customer base also increased to 7.0 million, boosting the total transaction values on the platform by 72.6 percent to USD 3.3 billion.
