Indus Towers Q3 results: Net profit up 16% YoY to Rs 1,571 crore

Kolkata: Indus Towers posted a net profit of Rs 1,571 crore in the fiscal third quarter, up 16 per cent on-year, with telcos adding more locations to tap decent data demand amid the continuing pandemic.

Consolidated revenue for the December quarter stood at Rs 6,927 crore, up 3 per cent on-year while consolidated earnings before interest tax depreciation & amortization (Ebitda) also rose 3 per cent on-year to Rs 3,704 crore.

Indus’s operating free cash flows, in turn, rose 21 per cent on-year to Rs 2,279 crore.

”The quarter marked completion of a year of operations of the merged (Indus) entity, which has made our industry leadership positioning more robust. Our steady operational and financial performance during the quarter was reassuring, (and), we believe our focus to promote passive infrastructure sharing and capitalise on adjacencies will help us further strengthen our commitment of Putting India First through connecting lives,” Bimal Dayal, Indus Towers managing director, said in an official statement Thursday.

The Indus MD added that “the government through its policies had reiterated its commitment towards ensuring the health and stability of the sector,” and that the telecom operators reciprocated suitably, which is expected to aid the financial and operational well-being of sector participants.

Co-locations are points where a tower company deploys mobile telecom antennae of multiple telcos on a single structure.

In the December quarter, Indus added net 1,286 towers on-quarter and 9,238 on-year across 22 telecom circles in India. Co-locations, in turn, increased 2,555 sequentially and 16,796 on-year. The sharing revenue per tower (per month) rose 2.3 per cent sequentially but fell 3.8 per cent on-year to Rs 79,609.

As of end-December, Indus owned and operated 1,84,748 towers with 3,35,106 co-locations across India.

Net finance costs were down 2.8 per cent on-year at Rs 379.3 crore in the December quarter.

The world’s largest tower company, formerly known as Bharti Infratel, was merged in November 2020 after which Vodafone Idea sold its 11.15 per cent stake in Indus for a cash consideration of Rs 3,760.1 crore.

Promoters of the merged towers entity, Bharti Airtel and UK’s Vodafone Group currently hold 41.73 per cent and 28.12 per cent share in Indus Towers respectively.

The company’s stock closed 1.6 per cent lower at Rs 249.50 on BSE on Thursday. The results were declared after market hours.