Bharti Airtel Ltd.

Gopal VittalExecutive Vice Chairman, Bharti Airtel Limited

Good afternoon, everybody and welcome to the Q1 earnings call. I have with me: Shashwat, Soumen, Akhil and Naval. Let me comment on the overall performance as well as the new bets that we are focused on before I hand over to Shashwat. We delivered yet another quarter of strong performance across the group. Our consolidated revenue was Rs.58,500 Crores, growing at about 5.7% sequentially. Africa maintained its strong growth trajectory with a constant revenue growth of 5.7%. India excluding the passive infra growth was equally strong at 3.6% sequentially. Our consolidated EBITDAaL was at Rs.29,800 Crores, this is a growth of 4.2% and the margin stood at 51%. Our operating free cash flow, which is EBITDAaL minus capex, was at over Rs.16,450 Crores.

Capex for the quarter was about Rs.13,390 Crores and the operational discipline continues to remain an enabler of our strong performance with focused execution and efficiency improvements through our War on Waste initiative. Our consolidated net debt to EBITDAaL improved to 0.7% and India without passive infra is now lower than 1%. The strength of our balance sheet is underpinned by our prudent capital allocation, disciplined capex and continued operational excellence and this is well recognized by leading global agencies, which sustained rating upgrades during the quarter. Our diversified resilient portfolio continues to deliver strongly.