Airtel said its India revenues fell 10 percent to Rs 17,244 crore in the first quarter of fiscal 2017-18 — primarily led by 14.1 percent drop in mobile services income.

Vodafone India posted 13 percent drop in its first quarter revenue. The reason for drop in revenue of both Airtel and Vodafone was due to the highly competitive pricing by Reliance Jio. Mukesh Ambani-promoted Jio added nearly 125 million 4G subscribers in the last 9 month after launching the service in September 2016.

Sunil Mittal-promoted Airtel said Indian mobile market remains turbulent in the current quarter as well.

Bharti Airtel revenue in Q1 fiscal 2017-18

# Customer stands at 379.9 million (+10.2% across 17 countries)
# Revenues at Rs 21,958 crore (–11.1%)
# Mobile data traffic more than doubled to 527 billion MBs (+178%)
# Mobile data revenues at Rs 3,765 crore (–16.8%)
# EBITDA at Rs 7,823 crore (–18.4%)
# EBITDA margin at 35.6% (–1.9%)
# Net Income at Rs 367 crore vs Rs 1,462 crore in Q1 fiscal 2016-17 vs Rs 373 crore in Q4 fiscal 2017

Airtel India

Mobile data traffic at Airtel India’s 2G, 3G and 4G network has increased 3-fold to 472 billion MBs in the first quarter as compared to 158 billion MBs. Mobile broadband customers increased by 33.7 percent to 48.9 million from 36.6 million.

Airtel India said its EBITDA margin eroded 5.3 percent. Airtel India’s EBITDA was Rs 6470 crore (–21 percent) with EBIT of Rs 2,523 crore (–44 percent). The company’s Capex (capital expenditure was Rs 6,241.8 crore (+51 percent).

Airtel India achieved 200 percent increase in data traffic and 34 percent growth in voice traffic. Airtel India added 5.2 million data customers in the last quarter despite competition from Reliance Jio and other rivals.

“The pricing disruption in the Indian telecom market caused by the entry of a new operator continued with industry revenues declining over 15 percent, creating further stress on sector profitability, cash flows and leverage,” said Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO of Airtel India & South Asia.

Airtel Africa

Airtel Africa said its revenues increased 1.5 percent. Data revenues of Airtel Africa reached $138 million (+11.3 percent), led by 19.4 percent increase in data customer base and 75 percent increase in data traffic. Data revenues contribute to 18.7 percent of overall Africa revenues vis-a-vis 16.9 percent in the corresponding quarter last year.

Airtel Africa achieved EBITDA margin of 8.1 percent and is at 28.0 percent. Airtel Money customer base reached 8.7 million, increasing the total transaction value on Airtel Money platform by 31.4 percent to $4.3 billion.

“Airtel Africa organic revenue growth for the quarter was 1.5 percent, though our efforts to optimize unprofitable revenue streams resulted in higher net revenue growth of 3.3 percent. New KYC norms impacted customer additions and consequently revenue growth in the quarter,” said Raghunath Mandava, MD and CEO of Airtel Africa.