Bharti Telemedia FY18 net profit more than doubles to Rs 282.9 cr

Bharti Telemedia, the direct to home (DTH) arm of telecom major Bharti Airtel, has seen its net profit for FY18 more than double to Rs 282.9 crore compared to Rs 131.5 crore in the previous fiscal.

The company provides service under the brand Airtel Digital TV.

The company’s EBITDA was up 16% at Rs 1422.6 crore compared to Rs 1221.9 crore in the previous fiscal. EBITDA margin improved 37.9% compared to 35.6%.

Revenue jumped 10% to Rs 3757 crore as against Rs 3430.6 crore. The company’s subscription revenue jumped 11% to Rs 3575 crore compared to Rs 3232 crore a year ago.

Activation revenue was up 8.31% at Rs 182 crore compared to Rs 198.5 crore.

Expenses increased 5.63% to Rs 2338.8 crore as against Rs 2214 crore. Content costs rose 11% to Rs 1336.1 crore compared to Rs 1203.7 crore. Licence fee was up 9.77% at Rs 377.9 crore compared to Rs 344.2 crore.

Sales and marketing expense also witnessed a 29% jump at Rs 126.7 crore from Rs 97.9 crore.

The company’s operating cash flow stood at Rs 394.9 crore which is a 9% increase over previous fiscal’s Rs 361.1 crore. It deployed a Capex of Rs 394.9 crore up 9% compared to Rs 361.1 crore in FY17.

The DTH operator added 1.36 million net subscribers to take its total subscriber base to 14.16 million from 12.8 million. The average revenue per user (APRU) stayed flat at Rs 228.

During the year, Bharti Airtel transferred its 44% shareholding in Bharti Telemedia to Nettle Infrastructure Investments. Bharti Airtel’s shareholding retained 51% shareholding in the company.

Bharti Enterprises Holding became the ultimate controlling entity with effect from 3 November 2017. Sunil Bharti Mittal’s family trust effectively controls the company.

A part of the stake has been utilised for the completion of stake sale in Bharti Telemedia to Warburg Pincus Group. In December 2017, Bharti Airtel had agreed to sell 20% equity stake in Bharti Telemedia to Warburg Pincus for approximately $350 million.

Comparatively, Dish TV had posted a net loss of Rs 84.9 crore in FY18 compared to a net profit of Rs 82.1 crore in FY17. EBITDA had jumped to Rs 1316 crore from Rs 968 crore.

The company’s financial performance for FY18 included 12 months financial performance of Dish TV India and six months financial performance of Videocon d2h.

The company’s subscription revenue for the fiscal was Rs 4216.7 crore while operating revenue stood at Rs 4634.2 crore. The subscription and operating revenue in FY17 were Rs 2769.6 crore and Rs 3014.4 crore.

Expenditure for the fiscal stood at Rs 3318.1 crore. The same was Rs 2046.4 crore in the previous fiscal.

The merged company Dish TV India had a subscriber base of 23 million with a market share of 37%.

Tata Sky, which is not a listed company, had posted a net profit of Rs 408 crore in FY18 as against Rs 8 crore in the previous fiscal. Tata Sky’s revenue for the fiscal had jumped 8% to Rs 5719 crore from Rs 5302 crore in FY17. The company’s operating margin was 31.8% during fiscal 2018 compared to 28.6% in fiscal 2017.

As on 31 March, the DTH operator had a 25% share of the pay net active DTH subscriber base of 67.53 million.