Telecom operator Bharti Airtel Ltd. said on Tuesday its fourth-quarter profit beat estimates and revenue jumped 22.3 percent, boosted by a recent tariff hike.
Its average revenue per user (ARPU), a key performance indicator in the telecom industry, came in at Rs. 178 for the quarter, up from Rs. 145 from a year earlier. ARPU of rivals Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea for the same period was Rs. 167.6 and Rs. 124, respectively.
Airtel, India’s second-biggest carrier, said in November when it announced tariff hikes that mobile ARPU needed to be at Rs. 200 and ultimately at Rs. 300, for a financially healthy business model.
The company has been raising money to fund its digital ambitions, including developing home broadband, data centres, cloud adoption as it prepares to launch its next-generation 5G services in the country.
In January, it announced an investment of up to $1 billion from Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
Airtel said on Sunday it would set up its fourth digital technology hub in the country, as part of plans to expand its in-house digital engineering capabilities.
Its consolidated net profit came in at Rs. 20.08 billion for the quarter, up from Rs. 7.59 billion a year earlier. Analysts had expected a profit of 19.78 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
The company reported consolidated revenue from operations of Rs. 315 billion ($4.06 billion) for the quarter ended March 31, compared with Rs. 257.47 billion in the same period last year, according to a regulatory filing.