But the bottomline fell 17% sequentially as cautious telcos like Bharti Airtel<\/a> and Vodafone Idea<\/a>, facing over Rs89,000 crores in adjusted gross revenue (AGR<\/a>) dues, cut back on expansion.
The company clocked in a net profit of Rs 799 crores in the October-December quarter. However, the net profit on a sequential basis, declined 17% to Rs 964 crores during the previous quarter.
Quarterly consolidated revenue rose 1% on-year to Rs 3673 crore, as per the financial result announced by the company after market hours on Thursday.
The company’s consolidated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation & amortization (EBITDA) grew 24% to Rs 1883 crore on year while the operating cash flow was up 8% on-year to Rs 1181 crore.
“We witnessed yet another quarter of improved net additions on both towers and co-locations during the quarter ended December 31, 2019, with net tower additions being the highest in four years on a quarterly basis. As a result, the Company has been able to largely recover the revenue and profitability that was lost due to large exits of co-locations that it witnessed over the last few quarters,” said Akhil Gupta<\/a>, Chairman, Bharti Infratel<\/a> Limited.
The company added a whopping 823 towers quarterly leading to an installed base of 94,244. This has also led to a strong uptick in sharing revenue per tower by 7% on annual basis.
It also added net 744 co-locations in the said quarter taking the total number to 1,74,150. However, on an annual basis, it lost 299 co-locations, which is a substantially muted loss as compared to the quarters gone by in this fiscal.
Co-locations are points where a tower company deploys mobile telecom antennae of multiple carriers on a single structure.
The company also said that the AGR<\/a> (Adjusted Gross Revenue) situation of the industry<\/a> has weighed on the growth in net tower and co-location additions.
“The telecom industry<\/a> continues to have financial uncertainty due to the recent AGR case judgement by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, but for which we believe that the growth of towers and co-locations would have been even stronger,” Gupta said.
He also added that a positive outcome from telco’s plea in the Supreme Court will speed up investment in their network benefitting Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers<\/a> in future.
Bharti Infratel’s tower base includes units by virtue of its 42% stake in Indus Towers<\/a>.
Indus Towers is a Bharti Infratel’s joint venture with UK-based Vodafone Group and Vodafone Idea<\/a> holding 42% and 11.15% respectively. Bharti Infratel’s merger deal with Indus Towers is stuck with government approvals and the deal’s deadline has been extended twice since the proposal with no assurance of completion.
The proposed merger of Bharti Infratel with Indus Towers aims to create one of the world’s largest telecom tower companies with more than 163,000 towers.
The company’s consolidated operating expenses fell by 16% to Rs 17,902 million with major components being power and fuel which declined by 4%, followed by repairs and maintenance which fell 8%. There was no rent paid in the just ended quarter, against a rental expense of Rs 3,050 crore a year back.
Bharti Infratel’s stock closed 0.43% higher at Rs 246.25 per piece on BSE on Thursday.
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