Airtel Reports Profit Of Rs. 759 Crores In Q4 FY21; ARPU Declines Due To IUC

Airtel has managed to post a profit of Rs. 759 crores in the Q4 of the last financial year. Notably, India's second-largest telecom operator posted a loss of Rs. 5,237 crores in Q4 FY20. However, the average revenue of the company has been decreased to Rs. 145 from Rs. 166 in the Q3 FY 21.

Airtel posted a loss of Rs. 21 in ARPU ever since TRAI removed interconnect usage charges (IUC) rates. Notably, telecom operators used to pay each other for connecting calls. So, any Jio customer is calling on Airtel or Vodafone-Idea number then, the latter used to get 6 paise for connecting that call.

"Our mobile revenues grew at 19.1 percent YoY backed by 13.7 million 4G customer additions. We saw strong momentum in our home business with 274000 net ads. The Enterprise segment delivered double-digit growth," said Gopal Vittal, chief executive officer of Bharti Airtel, India, South Asia.

Interestingly, Airtel is not the only telecom operator whose APRU has been decreased after the Telecom Regulatory of India abolished IUC rates. Similarly, Reliance Jio ARPU fell to 8.5 percent in the same quarter.

Airtel User Base In India

The company also highlighted that it added 13.4 million in the last quarter, which means its total subscriber stood at 321.4 million. However, after adding broadband and enterprises segment its user base is close to 350 million.

"Operationally Bharti Airtel is doing well and we see green shoots of recovery. However, the disproportionate share of subscribers it was poaching from Vodafone Idea in comparison to Reliance Jio seems to have tapered off," said Rohan Dhamija, partner & head (India & Middle East) at Analysys Mason.

Furthermore, Airtel pointed out that the data consumption stood at 16.8GB, while voice minute usage increases to Rs. 1053 minutes from 1,027 minutes. However, you'll be surprised to know that Reliance Jio data consumption was only 13.3GB, which is less than Airtel despite serving more customers.

Airtel Is Recovering

It seems that Airtel is back in action as its active user base is currently more than Reliance Jio. Also, the data consumption via the Airtel network is better than Jio, which means the former is improving its network and services in the country.