Airtel India said its Capex (capital expenditure) reached Rs 6,241.8 crore, registering an increase of 51 percent, in the first quarter of fiscal 2017-18.

Cumulative investment by Airtel India rose 17 percent to Rs 2,334,085 million.

Airtel Africa’s Capex fell 56 percent to $49 million. Airtel Africa revenue dropped 7 percent to $736 million with EBITDA of $206 million (+20 percent).

Airtel India made substantial investment in networks despite a 10 percent drop in Q1 fiscal 2018 revenue due to hyper competition.

The company’s investment in networks has supported Airtel India in achieving 3-fold increase in mobile data traffic to 472 billion MBs. Airtel India said mobile broadband customers increased 33.7 percent to 48.9 million.

Airtel India has invested Rs 5,072 crore (+59 percent) in mobile infrastructure, Rs 206 crore (–20 percent) in broadband, Rs 266 crore (+31 percent) in digital TV business and Rs 215 crore (+11 percent) in enterprise business during the first quarter ended June 30, 2017.

Airtel India said Rs 129,147 million (–14 percent) revenue came from mobile services, Rs 6,703 million (+1 percent) from broadband services, Rs 8,974 million (+7 percent) from digital TV and Rs 27,787 million (+4 percent). Airtel India’s total revenue was Rs 172,436 million (–10 percent).

Airtel India’s total ARPU was Rs 154 (–21.1 percent), while data ARPU was Rs 156 (–22.7 percent) in the first quarter of fiscal 2018.

Data customer base rose 6.2 percent to 62.56 million including mobile broadband customer base of 48.91 million (+33.7 percent). Total MBs on the Airtel India network reached 472,385 million MBs (+198.9 percent). Data usage per customer 2,611 MBs (188.8 percent), while data realization per MB 5.97 paisa (–73.2 percent).

Airtel network expansion

Airtel India has 162,380 network towers including 120,132 for mobile broadband as against 157,055 network towers in the corresponding quarter last year. The company has 203,506 mobile broadband base stations as compared to 137,567 mobile broadband base stations at the end of the same quarter last year and 190,860 in the previous quarter.

Airtel India has fixed broadband operations in 88 cities with 2.1 million customers including 2 milion broadband (DSL) customers, representing 92.6 percent of the total broadband customers. 78.1 percent of total broadband customers were V-Fiber enabled customers.

Net customer additions for broadband during the quarter were 8,000.

Broadband revenue was Rs 6,703 million as compared to Rs 6,644 million due to lower customer additions and pressure on ARPU.

Capital expenditure of Rs 2,065 million in broadband business was primarily on network upgradation and capacity enhancement.

Baburajan K