Bharti Airtel, India’s second-biggest telecom operator, has posted a 467 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 1,607 crore for the quarter ended June 30, bolstered by 4G subscriber additions and a higher revenue per user.

The Sunil Mittal-led telco’s consolidated revenue was up 22.2 per cent YoY to Rs 32,805 crore.

Its average revenue per user (ARPU)— a key performance indicator in the telecom industry — for the quarter came in at Rs 183, up from Rs 146 from a year earlier. This is an outcome of the company’s focus on acquiring and retaining quality customers and a relentless obsession with customer experience.

ARPU of rivals Reliance Jio—the telecom arm of Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL)— and Vodafone Idea for the same period was Rs 175.7 and Rs 128, respectively.

Mobile revenues grew by 27.4 per cent YoY on account of increase in ARPU and strong 4G customer additions during the year.

“We continue to garner strong share of the 4G customers in the market and added 20.8 million 4G customers to its network over last year, an increase of 11.3 per cent YoY. ARPU continues to be the best in industry, average data usage per mobile data customer at 19.5 GBs/month and voice usage per customer at 1,104 mins /month,” said Bharti Airtel in a regulatory filing post market hours on Monday (August 8).

 shares of Bharti Airtel closed nearly flat at Rs 704.35 apiece on the BSE .

The telecom operator said its 4G customers rose by 20.8 million on an annual basis and by 4.5 million on a sequential basis.

Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, said: “This has been another solid quarter. We continue to deliver strong and sustained growth at 4.5 per cent sequentially. EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) margins are now at 50.6 per cent. Our enterprise and homes business has strong momentum and delivered strong double digit growth, improving the diversity of the overall portfolio. Airtel’s strategy of winning with quality customers continues to yield good results with an industry beating ARPU at Rs 183.”

The Net Debt-EBITDA ratio and including the impact of leases as on June 30, 2022 is at 2.52 times as compared to 3.03 times as on June 30, 2021. “We continue to optimize the capital structure by judiciously allocating capital across our business to strengthen the balance sheet,” the telco said.