Profit before exceptional items and tax grew by 22.52% to Rs 6,751.1 crore in Q2 FY25 as compared to Rs 5,510 crore reported in Q2 FY24. The firm reported exceptional items of Rs 853.7 crore during the quarter.

EBITDA increased 12% to Rs 22,021 crore in Q2 FY25 as against to Rs 19,665 crore reported in Q2 FY24. The EBITDA margin held steady at 53.1% in Q2 FY25 compared to Q2 FY24.

Total capex spend for the quarter was at Rs 7,675 crore.

Consolidated mobile data traffic at 19,742 PBs in the quarter with a healthy YoY growth of 23.6%.

During the quarter, overall customer base stood at approximately 563 million across 15 countries.

India revenues for Q2 FY25 were at Rs 31,561 crore, increased by 16.9% YoY. Mobile revenues grew by 18.5% YoY, led by tariff repair and relentless focus to premiumize the portfolio with quality customers.

Average revenue per user (ARPU) for the quarter stood at Rs 233, up 14.77% as compared to Rs 203 in Q2 FY24.

The telecom operator strengthened its leadership position in postpaid segment with sustained momentum in net adds of 0.8 million in Q2 FY25 thereby reaching a customer base of 24.7 million.

Its market share in smartphone segment saw continued improvement with addition of 26.2 million, increase of 11.0% YoY.

Airtel Business delivered revenue growth of 10.7% YoY despite of macro headwinds in the global segment. Domestic business continues to showcase healthy growth trends. Its emerging digital products are also seeing strong traction.

Airtel's Homes business delivered a revenue growth of 17.3% year-over-year, driven by strong customer additions. During the quarter, the company accelerated its FWA expansion, resulting in a significant increase of 583,000 customers, bringing the total base to 8.6 million. The company continues to rapidly expand its home-pass network through its own assets and a partnership model with local cable operators.

Digital TV reported revenue of Rs 759 crore with a customer base of 15.8 million. The company continues to gain market share through its market-specific strategy and differentiated converged offerings.

As of 30 September 2024, the Net Debt-EBITDA ratio, including lease impact, stood at 2.50 times.

Africa's revenue (in constant currency) was at $1,263 million, representing a 20.8% increase compared to $1,046 million in the corresponding quarter last year, driven by growth across all regions, including Nigeria, East Africa, and Francophone countries. Customer base was around 157 million. Capex for the quarter was Rs 1,415 crore.

Gopal Vittal, MD, Bharti Airtel, said, “We delivered another quarter of solid performance, with India revenue growing 8.7% sequentially. Africa maintained strong revenue growth momentum as well with 7.7% constant currency growth. The flow thru of tariff repair is in-line with our expectation on ARPU increase and SIM consolidation. We reported industry leading ARPU of Rs 233. Our focus on winning quality customers and driving premiumization has helped us add 4.2 million smartphone customers.

We continue to expand our Wifi coverage with FWA offerings to over 2,000 cities. We continue to invest in our digital businesses to diversify portfolio strength and drive long term growth. Airtel also continues to invest in a future ready digital network to deliver brilliant customer experience - we launched India's first AI-powered, network-based spam detection solution to solve the endemic problem of spam calls and messages.

Our 5G network has once again received validation from Open signal – Airtel was awarded all the five awards on 5G network experience. Our balance sheet remains solid, supported by cash generation and continued deleveraging.

During the quarter, we prepaid another tranche of Rs 8,465 crore of high cost spectrum dues. At the same time, we believe that industry needs further tariff repair for sustained investments given that ROCE for India is still only 11 percent.”

Bharti Airtel is a global communications solutions provider with over 550 million customers in 15 countries across South Asia and Africa.