Airtel: Made an advance payment of Rs 8,465 crore

BUSINESS: Leading telecom service provider Bharti Airtel on Monday said it has paid Rs 8,465 crore to the government to repay high outstanding debt on spectrum acquired in 2016. The telco said in a statement that it has deposited the amount with the Department of Communications (DoT) at an interest rate of 9.3 per cent.

In June this year, Bharti Airtel had paid Rs 794 crore to the state ministry to repay high dues on spectrum acquired in 2012 and 2015. The company said in a stock exchange filing that it has fully repaid all outstanding debt for 2012 and 2015. The highest interest charges were at 9.75 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively. In January this year, Bharti Airtel had paid Rs 8,325 crore to the government to repay part of the outstanding debt on spectrum acquired in 2015. Bharti Airtel recently launched India’s first AI-based spam detection solution.

This free solution alerts customers to suspected spam in real time. With the help of this AI tool, it can easily identify 99.5 percent of spam messages and 97 percent of spam calls, said Gopal Vital, CEO and Chief Executive Officer of the company. The company reported a net profit (after exceptional items) of Rs 4.16 billion for the April-June period, up 158 percent year-on-year compared to the previous year, and revenue of Rs 385.06 billion, up 2.8 percent from the quarter. The company reported quarterly revenue in India of ₹29,046 crore, up 10.1% driven by strong and consistent performance across its portfolio. The company said digital television revenue remained stable with 16.3 million subscribers at the end of the quarter.