Telecom operator Bharti Airtel 's consolidated profit during July-September quarter declined marginally to Rs 1,460.7 crore from Rs 1,462 crore in previous quarter but that was far ahead of analysts' estimates on better-than-expected operational performance.
Revenue during the quarter slipped 3.5 percent to Rs 24,651.5 crore compared with Rs 25,546.5 crore in previous quarter, which missed expectations.
Consolidated revenue growth was muted on account of full quarter impact of Nigeria currency devaluation, Bharti said in its filing.
According to analysts polled by CNBC-TV18, profit was estimated at Rs 1,050 crore on revenue of Rs 25,495 crore for the quarter.
Consolidated EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) fell by 1.3 percent year-on-year to Rs 9,466.2 crore but margin expanded by 90 basis points to 38.4 percent in Q2, which surpassed analysts' estimates of Rs 9,250 crore and 36.3 percent, respectively. Margin expansion continued for fourth straight quarters.
Bharti reduced its total expenses by 4 percent sequentially on account of currency devaluation in Nigeria & high operating expenses control. It cut its sales & marketing expenses (down 11.1 percent), other expenses (down 14.4 percent), employee benefits (down 2.6 percent), depreciation cost (down 1.7 percent) and network operating expenses (down 5 percent) in Q2.
On a year-on-year basis, profit fell by 5 percent but revenue grew by 3 percent and EBITDA jumped 15 percent in the quarter gone by.
India revenue in Q2 declined 2 percent sequentially to Rs 14,735.3 crore due to seasonality. EBITDA fell 2.1 percent to Rs 6,249.2 crore but margin maintained at 42.4 percent QoQ.
Pricing pressure was seen in both voice and data businesses with voice revenue per minute falling 3.5 percent and data revenue per minute down 10 percent QoQ. However, voice volume decline of 0.5 percent was better than estimates.
Average revenue per user was down 4 percent to Rs 188 from Rs 196 and minutes of usage fell 2 percent to 406 QoQ.
Total minutes of usage during the quarter were 370.2 billion, representing a degrowth of 0.3 percent as compared to 371.2 billion in previous quarter. Its customers' base increased 1.46 percent to 363.1 million from 357.8 million on sequential basis.
Africa revenue slipped 15 percent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 5,304.8 crore due to Naira depreciation and sale of operations in Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso. EBITDA was down 12.5 percent to Rs 1,224.7 crore but margin expanded by 70 basis points to 23.1 percent in Q2.
Mobile data revenue during the quarter grew by 19.2 percent to Rs 4,536.3 crore compared with same period last year, which contributed 18.4 percent to total revenue (increased from 16 percent in Q2FY16). "Mobile data traffic continued to grow at healthy rate and grew at 60.9 percent to 221.5 billion MBs during the quarter as compared to 137.7 billion MBs in the corresponding quarter last year," the telecom operator said.
Net finance cost increased 5 percent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 2,038.6 crore in July-September quarter but net debt reduced by 2.4 percent to Rs 81,480.3 crore on sequential basis.
In the recent auction conducted by the government, Bharti Group has won 173.80 MHz spectrum across 1800/2100/2300 MHz bands against the consideration aggregating to Rs 14,243.6 crore.
Source: Money Control