Telecom operator Bharti Airtel is planning $3 billion investment towards Capex (capital expenditure) in India, South Asia and Africa during the current fiscal 2017-18.
Airtel India will be making an investment of $2.5 billion primarily focusing on sprucing up its fibre network and 4G coverage across the country.
“The focus of the company’s investment strategy will be to enhance data capacity for increasing customer experience,” said Airtel India CEO Gopal Vittal during the company’s earnings call on Wednesday.
Airtel’s India Capex during fiscal 2017 was INR 169,231 million (+12 percent) including INR 28,497 million (–31 percent) in Q4.
Airtel’s investment plan for the current financial year indicates that the country’s largest telecom operator will try to extend its dominance in the rapidly growing mobile Internet space. Reliance Jio, the new 4G operator, is trying to challenge the revenue growth of Airtel with aggressive voice and data plans.
Deutsche Bank, in its markets research report, said Bharti Airtel’s performance in Q4 fiscal 2017 was “Good” in a tough environment.
Bharti Airtel chooses to trade margins to defend its subscriber-base revenue of INR 129.7 billion and EBITDA of INR 47.8 billion for the India mobile business.
While realizations fell, the impact was largely offset by volume growth in both voice and data in India. Revenue per min (0.24) and revenue / MB (0.12) fell 17.5 percent and 32 percent quarter-on-quarter. Minutes grew 24 percent year-on-year, the highest in six years.
Data usage (+54 percent) reverted to pre-Jio levels. Bharti also recouped the broadband subscriber losses of previous quarter to report a sub-base of 42.7 million. The mobile metrics suggest that Bharti is willing to tactically match Jio’s price aggression to defend its sub-base and revenue-share.
Airtel’s non-mobile businesses (30 percent of revenue) grew revenue and EBITDA by 11 percent/1.6 percent, reflecting the impact of ramp of Airtel Payment Bank.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
