Jio effect: Airtel Q1 net profit tanks 75% to Rs 367 cr

Team Udayavani, Jul 25, 2017, 6:05 PM IST

New Delhi: The country’s largest telecom company Bharti Airtel today posted 74.89 per cent plunge in consolidated net profit to Rs 367 crore for the June quarter of the current fiscal, hit hard by the disruptive pricing of newcomer Reliance Jio.

In contrast, its net income was Rs 1,462 crore in the April-June quarter of last fiscal, 2016-17.

Bharti’s total revenue fell 14 per cent to Rs 21,958 crore in the first quarter of 2017-18, from Rs 25,546 crore in the year-ago period.

The earnings numbers came in after market hours.

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

The company appears to have controlled the quarter-on- quarter slide it had been experiencing since the entry of Reliance Jio in September 2016.

Bharti Airtel’s net profit dipped marginally when compared sequentially to Rs 373.4 crore in the March quarter.

Incidentally, April-June is the first quarter of charged 4G services by the industry newcomer and rival Reliance Jio.