New Delhi: Bharti Airtel on Thursday reported its first-ever loss of Rs 940 crore from its mainstay India business for the June quarter as it bled to retain market dominance in the face of free voice calls and dirt cheap tariffs from Reliance Jio.
Airtel, however, reported a Rs 97-crore net profit on a consolidated basis in the April-June period after taking into account revenues from its Africa business.
The firm's India business had posted a net profit of Rs 834.9 crore in the first quarter of the previous fiscal and Rs 186 crore in the preceding January-March quarter.
"Industry pricing continues to remain untenable. However, led by our successful bundles, content partnerships and handset upgrade programs, our mobile data traffic surged 355 per cent on a year-on-year basis," the company's managing director and CEO (India and South Asia), Gopal Vittal, said in a statement.
The consolidated net profit in April-June was 73 per cent lower than Rs 367 crore in the same period a year ago.
The consolidated income of Bharti Airtel declined 8.6 per cent to Rs 20,080 crore for the first quarter of this fiscal from Rs 21,958 crore in corresponding period of 2017-18.
The Africa business, an investment which was once regretted by founder Sunil Bharti Mittal, helped the company post positive income.
Bharti Airtel's Africa operations recorded a net income of Rs 393.9 crore before exceptional items, while the India and the South Asia businesses pulled it down by a loss of Rs 982.5 crore.
An exceptional gain on account of a deferred tax asset of Rs 515.6 crore in Nigeria rescued the India-based telecom major from posting its first-ever consolidated net loss.
Bharti Airtel's India performance continued to face turbulence from the ongoing tariff war despite high level of investments and increase in use of services.
The average revenue per user on Bharti Airtel's India network declined around 32 per cent to Rs 105 from Rs 154 year-on-year.
Shares of Bharti Airtel closed at Rs 357.6, up 1.63 per cent, over the previous close on the BSE.
