Airtel prepays Rs 8,465 crore to clear liabilities for spectrum acquired in 2016

NEW DELHI: Leading telecom service provider Bharti Airtel on Monday said it has prepaid Rs 8,465 crore to the government to clear high-cost deferred liabilities for spectrum acquired in 2016.

The telecom operator prepaid the amount to the Department of Telecom (DoT) with an interest rate of 9.3 per cent, it said in a statement.

In June this year, Bharti Airtel prepaid Rs 7,904 crore to the DoT to clear high-cost deferred liabilities for spectrum acquired in 2012 and 2015. In a stock exchange filing, the company said that it fully prepaid all deferred liabilities for the years 2012 and 2015 which were at the highest interest cost of 9.75 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.

In January this year, Bharti Airtel prepaid Rs 8,325 crore to the government to clear part of its deferred liabilities for the spectrum it acquired in 2015.

Bharti Airtel has just launched India’s first network-based, AI-powered spam detection solution. The free-of-cost solution alerts customers in real time to all suspected spams. According to Gopal Vittal, the company’s Managing Director and CEO, 99.5 per cent of spam messages and 97 per cent of spam calls can be easily identified with the help of this AI tool.

For April-June quarter, the company reported net profit (after exceptional items) at Rs 4,160 crore, up by 158 per cent (year-on-year), and revenue at Rs 38,506 crore which is up 2.8 per cent YoY. Its India business saw quarterly revenues of Rs 29,046 crore -- up 10.1 per cent backed by strong and consistent performance across the portfolio, said the company.

According to the company, revenue from digital TV remained stable with a 16.3 million customer base at the end of the quarter.