Bharti Airtel today said its Capex (capital expenditure) investment was $737 million in Q1 fiscal 2017 against $629 million in Q1 fiscal 2016 and $895 million in Q4 fiscal 2016.
Airtel mainly invests in mobile – 2G and 3G networks for voice services, fixed phone and broadband, 4G networks, enterprise and mobile data business in India, South Asia and Africa.
ALSO READ: Airtel revenue up 8%, mobile data up 34% to Rs 4,640 crore
The investment of Bharti Airtel in India and South Asia was Rs 4,174.8 crore in Q1 fiscal 2017 against Rs 3,041 crore in Q1 fiscal 2016. Airtel invested Rs 750.4 crore in Africa business in Q1 fiscal 2017 as against Rs 951.1 crore in Q1 fiscal 2016.
Airtel India
Airtel India has made a Capex related investment of Rs 3,194.1 crore in Mobile Services business, Rs 257.1 crore in home service, Rs 203 crore in digital services, Rs 193.7 crore in enterprise business in India.
Airtel India has 157,055 network towers in Q1 fiscal 2017 against 147,616 network towers in the same quarter last year.
Airtel has 108,015 mobile broadband towers connected to 3G / 4G networks.
The company said it has 137,567 mobile broadband base stations (3G and 4G base stations across all technologies i.e. 900/2100/1800/2300). This means Airtel has the largest high speed mobile internet network in India comparing with Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications and Reliance Jio.
There were 66,322 mobile broadband base stations at the end of the corresponding quarter last year and 118,197 at the end of the previous quarter.
Airtel achieved mobile services revenue of Rs 15,052.6 crore (+9.1 percent). Revenue from mobile data accounted for 23.7 percent of the total mobile revenue against 19.2 percent. Mobile data revenue grew 35.1 percent to Rs 3,525 crore.
Airtel India’s GSM customer base increased to 255.7 million (+10.9 percent). The churn has increased to 3.6 percent compared to 3.3 percent due to competitive pressures.
Airtel has 58.9 million (+19.1 percent) data customers, representing 23 percent of total customers.
The total MBs on the Airtel network has increased by 54.9 percent to 158 billion MBs as compared to 102 billion MBs.
Airtel customers use mobile data of 904 MBs (28.1 percent).
Data ARPU of Airtel was Rs 202 (+11.7 percent).
Africa
Airtel Africa had revenue of $935 million (+3.8 percent). Mobile data revenue represents 16.5 percent of the total mobile revenue against 12.9 percent.
Capital expenditure of Airtel Africa during the quarter was $112 million mainly towards enhancing data capabilities.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
