Indian telecoms group Bharti Airtel has booked total revenue of INR360.1 billion (USD4.38 billion) for the three months to end-March 2023, up from INR315.0 billion in the same period of 2022. EBITDA for the quarter grew by 17.6% year-on-year to INR188.1billion, whilst net income improved by nearly 50% from INR20.1 billion to INR30.1 billion. CAPEX nearly doubled compared to 2022, meanwhile, reaching INR114.4 billion compared to INR60.0 billion a year earlier. Airtel attributed the revenue and profit growth to customer additions and stable ARPU across its Indian and African divisions, as well as growing demand and ‘emerging competencies’ in the business segment. The group counted a consolidated total of 518.4 million customers at the end of March 2023, compared to 510.8 million in December 2022 and 489.7 million in March 2022.
Its Indian mobile unit saw a 2.9% y-o-y increase in subscriptions, to 335.4 million, including a 10.4% surge in post-paid accounts (to 19.7 million) whilst 4G subscriptions grew by 11.6% y-o-y to 224.1 million. Mobile ARPU stood at INR193 for the period, unchanged quarter-on-quarter but an improvement from INR178 a year earlier. Fixed broadband services continued to see strong take-up in its domestic market, with subscriptions growing by 34.9% y-o-y and 7.2% q-o-q to 6.05 million. Competitive pressures in the segment have steadily eroded ARPU, however, which dipped to INR614 from INR650 in March 2022.