Airtel eyes growth in fintech, cloud, and data centers
What's the story
Bharti Airtel is gearing up for its next growth phase by focusing on financial services, data centers, and cloud computing. The company's chairman Sunil Mittal revealed this strategy in the annual report. He said that over the last decade, Airtel has invested more than ₹3.3 lakh crore to build one of India's most robust digital infrastructure networks.
Growth strategy
Airtel Money gets RBI nod for NBFC operations
Airtel Money, a subsidiary of the company, has received approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a non-deposit-taking non-banking financial company (NBFC). In the data center segment, Nxtra is on track to build 1GW capacity over the next few years after raising $1 billion from investors. The company has also launched a sovereign cloud offering for enterprises.
Financial highlights
Airtel's revenue market share in mobile segment grows
Despite the absence of tariff hikes, Airtel's revenue market share in the mobile segment has grown. The company reported a 39.7% share of industry revenues, up by 20 basis points from last year. In terms of financial performance, Airtel achieved a record high consolidated operating free cash flow of over ₹60,400 crore. This reserve will be used for shareholder payouts and investments in core business and new growth engines.
Operational updates
Mittal's annual salary increased by 2.4%
Airtel has rolled out over 43,000km of fiber and enhanced its network's resiliency and capacity. The company is upgrading its network to 5G through a standalone architecture. In terms of remuneration, Mittal drew an annual salary of ₹33.34 crore, a 2.4% increase year-on-year (YoY). Vittal, who transitioned from managing director to executive vice chairman, earned an annual salary of ₹21.72 crore, a 7.32% increase over the previous year.