Bharti Airtel on Tuesday said its net profit during the October-December quarter declined 27% sequentially to Rs 830 crore (after exceptional items), missing Street estimates. In the preceding quarter, the country’s second-largest telecom operator had booked a one-time gain of Rs 722 crore on account of spectrum sale to Reliance Jio. Adjusting for this, the net profit in the preceding quarter would have stood at Rs 594 crore. During the December 2021 quarter, the net profit before exceptional gain was Rs 807 crore.

Bharti’s board on Tuesday approved an enabling provision for a fundraise of up to Rs 7,500 crore through the issuance of various debt instruments to refinance borrowings.

“Our balance sheet is robust and we are now generating healthy free cash flows. This has enabled us to recently prepay some of our spectrum liabilities to the government thereby reducing the interest burden,” Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India and South Asia, said.

The company’s consolidated revenues rose 5.4% on a sequential basis to Rs 29,867 crore, beating estimates.

Bharti’s consolidated Ebitda beat estimates coming in at Rs 14,905 crore, up 6.32% compared with the preceding quarter, aided by tariff hikes undertaken by the company. The Ebitda margin expanded to 49.9% from 49.5% in the preceding quarter.

The company’s India revenues increased by 5.14% sequentially at Rs 20,913 crore, while mobile revenues were up 5.93% quarter-on-quarter at Rs 16,092 crore.

The average revenue per user (Arpu) saw a jump of 5.9% quarter-on-quarter at Rs 163 against Rs 153 in the preceding quarter. Bharti’s Arpu continues to be the best in the industry, remaining ahead of Reliance Jio’s Rs 151.6. The growth in Arpu was on the back of tariff hikes and continued momentum in 4G customer additions.

Over the past two quarters, the company has done several tariff hikes to improve Arpu. Bharti had increased tariffs on certain postpaid plans across retail and enterprise segments during Q2FY22, while in November 2021 it had increased prepaid tariffs across all price points by 20-25%, including unlimited plans as well as combo vouchers.

Apart from Arpu, the company’s data usage per customer and voice minutes per user also continue to be ahead of rival Reliance Jio.

Minutes of voice usage per customer per month increased 0.7% quarter-on-quarter to 1,061 minutes. Data usage per customer per month, though down 1.8% sequentially at 18,727 MB, was still the strongest in the industry. Total data volume saw a jump of 0.4% q-o-q at 11,311,780 million Mbs.

Monthly churn saw a slight decline to 2.9% from 3% in the preceding quarter. As a result of tariff hikes, the company’s total mobile subscribers declined marginally to 323 million subscribers, but 4G subscribers increased to 195 million, a jump of 1.6%. 4G users now comprise 62.8% of the overall customer base of the company.

Regarding Google’s recent investment in the company, Vittal said it is a strong validation of Airtel’s role in being a leading pioneer of India’s digital revolution. “Our emerging digital services portfolio across Airtel IQ, AdTech, digital market place, Nxtra and digital banking positions us well to build an Airtel of the future,” he added.