Bharti Airtel Q4FY18: Consolidated income declines by 78% to Rs 83 crore

Largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel missed analysts estimates in terms of consolidated net profit during fourth quarter ended March 2018 performance. The company posted consolidated net income of Rs 83 crore in Q4FY18 versus Rs 306 crore in preceding quarter and Rs 373 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. With this, the net income of Airtel has plunged by 77.87% qoq and 77.74% yoy. A Bloomberg poll of analysts expected the company to report net income of Rs 373 crore in Q4FY18. 

Consolidated revenue also did not see any revival, as it stood at Rs 19,634 crore during Q4FY18 de-grew 5.4% Y-o-Y (reported drop of 10.5%) on an underlying basis (viz. adjusted for India domestic & international termination rate reduction and Bangladesh & Africa divested/acquired operating units).

Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia, said, “The telecom industry continues to witness below cost, artificially suppressed pricing. Industry revenues were further adversely impacted this quarter due to the reduction in International termination rates.”

Vittal adds, “Airtel continued to consolidate its leadership position this quarter. Our strategic investments in data capacities, innovative digital content through Airtel TV, customer friendly bundles and upgrade programs led to the highest ever mobile data customer additions of 15 Mn during the quarter. Usage parameters remained robust– on a YOY basis, we saw data and voice traffic grow 584% and 55% respectively.”

Consolidated mobile data traffic at 1,616 million MBs in the quarter has registered a robust Y-o-Y growth of 505%.

Consolidated EBITDA at Rs 7,034 crore declined 12.0% Y-o-Y. Consolidated EBITDA margin decreased by 0.6% to 35.8% in the quarter as compared to 36.4% in the corresponding quarter last year. Consolidated EBIT dropped by 29.0% Y-o-Y to Rs 2,106 crore. 

In a meeting held on April 24, the Board of Directors has recommended final dividend for the financial year 2017-18 of Rs. 2.50/- per equity share (face value: Rs. 5/- each), being subject to the approval of the shareholders in the ensuing Annual General Meeting of the Company. 

Talking on outlook ahead, Vital said, “In line with our goal of building market leading 4G networks, with best in class speeds and capacity; while supporting the Digital India initiative, we have ended the financial year with our highest ever capital expenditure of Rs 240 billion. We intend to continue the rollout momentum next year as well” 

Share price of Bharti Airtel closed at Rs 406.10 per piece on BSE up by Rs 2.45 or 0.61%.