Airtel to focus on finance, cloud, data centres to drive next growth phase, says chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal

New Delhi: Bharti Airtel is focusing on finance, data centres and cloud as its next phase of growth after investing more than ₹3.3 lakh crore over the past decade to build one of India's strongest digital infrastructure networks, chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said in the company's annual report.

"Over the last few years, we took a calibrated approach to build new growth engines for Airtel. These bold bets yielded strong outcomes and have grown our conviction in three adjacencies where we believe Airtel has a clear right to win - financial services, data centres and Airtel Cloud," Mittal said.

Airtel Money, the company's subsidiary, has received the Reserve Bank of India's nod to operate as a non-deposit-taking non-banking financial company (NBFC), while in the data centre space, Nxtra is on track to build 1 GW of capacity over the next few years after raising $1 billion from investors. The company has also developed a sovereign cloud offering to enterprises, Mittal said.

Airtel's annual report showed revenue market share growth in the mobile industry moderated in the absence of tariff hikes.

India's second-largest telecom operator reported a 39.7% share of industry revenues, up by 20 basis points, as compared with a 178 basis point growth to 39.5% in the previous year.

In the mobile business, Mittal said Airtel has been focused on portfolio premiumisation, winning quality customers and delivering exceptional experience.

"This strategy has yielded strong results, which are reflected in sustained revenue market share gains, industry-leading ARPU and robust customer additions," Mittal said.

The company also achieved a lifetime high consolidated operating free cash flow of over ₹60,400 crore, according to its annual report. This reserve will be used in unlocking shareholder payouts and investing in core business and new growth engines, Mittal said.

Executive vice chairman Gopal Vittal said the telco's operational environment has been facing cost pressures across technology and infrastructure components.

"In response, we are identifying opportunities to simplify processes, eliminate waste and improve productivity through technology and automation," Vittal said.

Vittal said Airtel rolled out over 43,000 km of fibre and extended the resiliency and capacity of its network. The company is transitioning its network towards advanced 5G capabilities through a standalone architecture.

During the financial year, chairman Mittal drew an annual remuneration of ₹33.34 crore, an increase of 2.4% year-on-year, according to the report. Vittal, who moved from managing director to executive vice chairman, earned an annual salary of ₹21.72 crore, reflecting a 7.32% increase compared to the previous year.