Mumbai: Bharti Airtel Ltd on May 16 reported just about a 50 per cent year-on-year (YoY) hike in its Quarter fourth profits during the financial year 2022-23. The telecom firm aggregated net profit stands at Rs 3,006 crore in Q4FY23 in comparison to a year-back profit of Rs 2,008 crore at the same time.

The firm’s revenue from operations rose to Rs 36,009 crore in Q4FY23 from Rs 31,500 crore during the same period last year.

With this huge growth, the telecom operator has declared a dividend of Rs 4 per fully paid-up equity share. “For FY23, the Board has recommended a final dividend of Rs 4 per fully paid-up equity share of face value of Rs 5 each and Re 1 per partly paid-up equity share of face value of Rs 5 each (paid-up Rs. 1.25 per equity share),” the company said in an exchange filing.

Financial Figures

Airtel’s average revenue per user (ARPU), which is an indicator of revenue-generating capabilities at the per-customer level for telecom firms, stood at Rs 193 in Q4FY23, flat on a sequential basis. However, ARPU rose up by 8.43 per cent (YoY) from rs 178 in Q4FY22.

What does the company have to say?

On the quarterly numbers, Gopal Vittal, MD of Airtel, said, “Our consolidated revenue grew sequentially by 0.60 per cent, while EBITDA margin expanded to 52.20 per cent despite there being two fewer days in the quarter. Our focus on acquiring quality customers has resulted in 7.40 million new 4G customers, as we exit the quarter with an industry-leading ARPU of Rs 193. We are also pleased to see the increased velocity of our digital deliveries across all parts of our business. This has been due to our sustained focus on digital platforms and talent.”

Meanwhile, Vittal also spoke about how Airtel will be continuing to ramp up the 5G rollout and connect all focused towns and key villages by the end of this year.

Airtel in its stock exchange filing said, “Consolidated EBITDA witnessed an increase of 17.6% YoY to Rs 18,807 crore in Q4FY23. This led to an improvement in EBITDA margin from 50.8% in Q4FY22 to 52.2% in Q4FY23 on the back of continued focus on our War on Waste program to drive cost optimisation. EBITDA margins across businesses remained healthy, with India EBITDA margins improving from 50.8% in Q4FY22 to 53.1% in Q4FY23,” said Airtel in a stock exchange filing.

Shares of Airtel lowered down by 1.27 per cent at Rs 787.85 today with overall weakness in the domestic benchmarks.