Bharti Airtel Limited (“Bharti Airtel” or “the Company”) announced its audited consolidated results for the second quarter ended September 30, 2024.
Q2’25 Performance:
Consolidated revenues for Q2’25 at Rs 41,473 crore grew 12.0% YoY, 7.7% QoQ, driven by strong momentum in India and growth in constant currency in Africa. Consolidated EBITDA for Q2’25 at Rs 22,021 Cr, grew 12.0% YoY, implying EBITDA margin of 53.1%.
India revenues for Q2’25 at Rs 31,561 crore, increased by 16.9% YoY. Mobile revenues grew 18.5% YoY led by tariff repair and our relentless focus to premiumize the portfolio with quality customers. We continue to deliver industry leading ARPU growth. ARPU for the quarter stood at Rs 233 as compared to Rs 203 in Q2’24.
We strengthened our leadership position in postpaid segment with sustained momentum in net adds of 0.8 Mn in Q2’25 thereby reaching a customer base of 24.7 Mn. Our market share in smartphone segment saw continued improvement with addition of 26.2 Mn, increase of 11.0% YoY.
We rolled out additional ~5k towers and ~15.2k mobile broadband stations in the quarter to enhance connectivity and provide superior network experience. Additionally, we turbo charged our networks with deployment of additional spectrum acquired in key circles in Jun’24. Our commitment towards providing unparalleled network experience is reflected in our investments as we added ~34k towers YoY. Our 5G network once again got validation from Open signal as we got awarded all the five categories on 5G network experience.
Airtel launched India’s first network-based, AI-powered spam detection solution to curb the country’s spam menace. A first-of-its-kind solution by a telecom service provider in the country, the tool will alert customers in real-time to all suspected spam calls and SMSes. The solution is free of cost and will get auto-activated for all Airtel customers without them having to raise a service request or download an app.
Homes business sustained growth momentum with a revenue growth of 17.3% YoY, driven by strong customer additions. During the quarter, we accelerated our FWA expansion, which led to strong uptick in customer additions of 583 K customers to reach to a total base of 8.6 Mn. We continue to rapidly expand our home-pass network through own and asset light local cable operator partnership model.
Airtel Business delivered revenue growth of 10.7% YoY despite of macro headwinds in the global segment. Domestic business continues to showcase healthy growth trends. Our emerging digital products are also seeing strong traction.
Digital TV posts revenue of Rs 759 Cr with customer base of 15.8 Mn. We continue to gain customer market share with our market specific strategy and differentiated converged offerings.
We continue to strengthen our digital capabilities to deliver best-in-class experience and differentiated digital services to our customers. During the quarter, Airtel and Apple entered in a strategic partnership to bring exclusive offers of Apple TV+ and Apple Music to Airtel customers in India.
Consolidated EBITDA witnessed an increase of 12.0% YoY to Rs 22,021 crore in Q2’25. EBITDA margin is 53.1% in Q2’25, remains flat YoY. EBITDA margins across businesses remained healthy, with India EBITDA margins at 54.8% in Q2’25.
Consolidated EBIT increased by 10.7% YoY to Rs 10,996 crore. Consolidated Net Income before exceptional items for the quarter stands at Rs 3,911 crore. Consolidated Net income after exceptional items stood at Rs 3,593 crore.
Net Debt-EBITDA ratio (annualized) and including the impact of leases as on September 30, 2024 is at 2.50 times.We continue to optimize the capital structure by judiciously allocating capital across our businesses to strengthen the balance sheet. We have prepaid Rs. 8,465 Cr in Sep’24 for deferred liabilities pertaining to spectrum acquired in the year 2016 to the Department of Telecom, which were at the interest rate of 9.3%.
In a statement, Mr. Gopal Vittal, MD said,“We delivered another quarter of solid performance, with India revenue growing 8.7% sequentially. Africa maintained strong revenue growth momentum as well with 7.7% constant currency growth. The flow thru of tariff repair is in-line with our expectation on ARPU increase and SIM consolidation. We reported industry leading ARPU of Rs 233. 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. 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.
Our balance sheet remains solid, supported by cash generation and continued deleveraging. During the quarter, we prepaid another tranche of Rs 8,465 crore of high cost spectrum dues.
At the same time, we believe that industry needs further tariff repair for sustained investments given that ROCE for India is still only 11 percent.”
Summary of the Consolidated Statement of Income – represents consolidated Statement of Income as per Indian Accounting Standards (Ind-AS)
Covered By: Mobility India / Airtel
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