Airtel consolidates its position against Jio, registers a quarterly revenue rise of 21%

Airtel’s customer base using Vo-Wi-Fi service stands at 25 million while the customer base stands at 351 million.

Airtel said that its monthly mobile data consumption per customer stood at 18.5 GBs, which is up by 13.7% YoY while the voice usage stood at 1,044 mins per customer per month. (REUTERS)

Bharti Airtel has shared quarterly results for the first quarter of the year 2022. In its quarterly results, the company reported quarterly revenue of ₹26,854, which is 21.2% more than the company's earnings in the first quarter of 2021. Airtel said that its consolidated EBITDA stood at ₹13,189 crore while the India business posts EBITDA stood at ₹9,273 crore.

As far as individual businesses are concerned, Airtel said that the revenue in the case of the mobile services in India was up 21.9% year-on-year, which happened due to improving realizations and sustained increase in 4G customer base. Airtel's Business revenues also improved in this quarter. It was up by 8.2% year on year. Its homes business also demonstrated growth of 12.9% YoY, while Airtel's digital TV business was up by 8.7% YoY.

As far as the growth in subscribers is concerned, Bharti Airtel said that its 4G customer base grew by 46.1 million subscribers YoY to reach 184.4 million subscribers marking an overall increase of 57%. The company also said that its Mobile ARPU (average revenue per user) grew in the first quarter of 2022. Airtel's mobile ARPU grew at ₹146 in Q1 2022 vs ₹138 in Q1 2021. On the other hand, Jio's ARPU stood at ₹138.4, and Vi's ARPU stood at ₹107 in Q4FY21.

Similarly, the company said that its monthly mobile data consumption per customer stood at 18.5 GBs, which is up by 13.7% YoY while the voice usage stood at 1,044 mins per customer per month. Airtel also said that it rolled out additional 2,400 towers and 55K mobile broadband base stations in Q1 2022. It also deployed additional spectrum across 900, 1800, 2100, and 2300 bands in multiple circles to improve network availability and data speeds. Airtel's customer base using Vo-Wi-Fi service stands at 25 million while the customer base stands at 351 million.

Airtel also said that it recorded the highest ever customer additions of 285 K in the homes business in Q1 2022 and of 282K customers in the Digital TV business. Its Digital TV business base now stands at 18 million subscribers.

“We added ~ 5.1 Mn 4G customers during the quarter and our enterprise business in India continued to deliver strongly. Our Homes business grew by just about 13 percent over last year and added 285K customers in the quarter, the highest ever. We continue to invest in the best of emerging technologies, including networks and digital capabilities,” Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia, said in a statement.