Bharti Airtel’s consolidated net income fell 72% to ₹373 crore for the January-March quarter as a result of “sustained predatory pricing by the new operator,” Reliance Jio, impacting voice and data businesses.
The telecom services provider has also warned that the market conditions would remain “turbulent” in the current quarter as well. The company’s revenues declined by 12% to ₹21,935 crore. It had posted net income of ₹1,319 crore in the year-ago period.
“The sustained predatory pricing by the new operator has led to a decline in revenue growth for the second quarter in a row. The telecom industry as a whole also witnessed a revenue decline for the first time ever on a full year basis.
“The deteriorating health of the industry was compounded by the tsunami of incoming voice traffic from the new operator as a result of which significant investments had to be made just to carry the incoming traffic on our network,” Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia, said.
The company’s India revenue declined 7% year on year to ₹17,036 crore, it said. Mobile data revenues at ₹2,727 crore were 21.5% of mobile revenues in Q4 as against 23.3% in year-ago period. Mobile data ARPU declined to ₹162 during the reported quarter from ₹196 in Q42016. However, number of mobile broadband customer increased by 20.5% to 4.27 crore.
For the full year 2016-17, net income fell 37.5% to ₹3,800 crore while revenue was lower by 1.1% at ₹95,468 crore compared to the previous fiscal.
“The consolidated EBIT of ₹2,964 crore represents a Y-o-Y de-growth of 31.4% on account of higher spectrum amortization costs in India. Net interest costs of ₹ 1,908 crore have risen from ₹ 1,524 crore in the corresponding quarter last year – largely due to increased spectrum related interest costs,” the company said. It added that forex and derivative loss for the quarter came in at ₹ 8 crore compared to loss of ₹ 177 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.
The company’s Board has proposed a final dividend of ₹1 per share (face value of ₹5 per share) for the financial year ended March 31, 2017.
Raghunath Mandava, MD and CEO, Africa, said, “Airtel Africa underlying revenues grew by 4.4% in constant currency terms during FY 16-17 with net revenues up a healthy 5.0% as we shed unprofitable lines...For the fi₹t time ever, African operation has delivered positive PBT in the financial year (constant currency).”
