iWorld
Airtel’s mobile services revenue grew by 20.3 per cent in Q2’22
Mumbai: Bharti Airtel Ltd (Airtel) has announced its audited consolidated second quarter results for the quarter ended on 30 September. The telecom company’s India revenues grew by 18.3 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to reach Rs 19,890 crore and mobile revenues grew by 20.3 per cent YoY on the basis of increase in ARPU and strong 4G customer addition.
“The ARPU for the quarter came in at Rs 153 compared to Rs 143 in Q2’21 on a comparable basis, validating our strategy of focusing on quality customers,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
The consolidated revenues for Q2’22 at Rs 28,326 crore grew 18.8 per cent YoY on a comparable basis and 13.0 per cent YoY on a reported basis. Consolidated mobile data traffic at 10,943 PBs in the quarter with a healthy YoY growth of 47.8 per cent.
“The company continues to gain a strong share of the 4G customers in the market” it said. 4G data customers increased by 26.1 per cent YoY to 192.5 million. Over the last four quarters, the company has added 39.9 million 4G customers to its network. “ARPU continues to be the best in industry, average data usage per data customer at 18.6 GBs/month and voice usage per customer at 1,053 mins /month,” a statement further said.
Airtel has rolled out additional ~3,500 towers and ~56K mobile broadband base stations in the quarter. Several initiatives have also been undertaken to improve network quality – leveraging digital tools/probes to monitor and improve customer experience and scaling up Vo-Wi-Fi adoption to improve indoor experience. “We now have over 33 million customers using our Vo-Wi-Fi services,” it said.
Homes business segment witnessed a revenue growth of 21.3 per cent YoY with highest ever customer net additions of ~467K during the quarter to reach a total base of 3.8 million. It said, “We continued to expand our offering at a fast pace to non-wired cities through the LCO model. We now live in 436 cities through this model, with overall operations in 523 cities.”
Airtel Business saw 11.5 per cent YoY growth, driven by demand for connectivity, connectivity related solutions and CPaaS (Communication Platform as a Service) across global business and domestic businesses, said the company.
Airtel announced investment of Rs 5,000 crore on ‘Nxtra by Airtel’ network of hyperscale and edge data centres by tripling the data centre capacity to over 400MW by 2025 to meet the surging demand.
Digital TV witnessed a revenue growth of 5.7 per cent YoY and continued to strengthen its leadership position with a customer base of 18 million at the end of quarter.
The digital services offerings of Airtel have a customer base of over 180 million MAUs across key digital assets – Thanks, Wynk, Xstream. “There are over 1.2 million retailers transacting and making payments every day on Mitra App,” said the company.
During the quarter, Airtel Payments Bank turned profitable with a strong total customer base of over 115 million and highly engaged Monthly Transacting Users (MTU) base of over 31 million.
“We welcome the reforms announced by the government for the telecom industry and believe this will add to the ability of the industry to invest so as to drive India’s digital story,” said Bharti Airtel Ltd managing director and chief executive officer for India and South Asia Gopal Vittal. “We hope the reforms momentum will continue and all longstanding issues impacting the industry will be addressed.”
“Our strategy of focusing on quality customers has been validated by the strong price flow and ARPU increase that we have seen in our wireless business. The step up in performance of our enterprise and homes business reflects the resilience and strength of our overall portfolio. Even more exciting is the way our new businesses – Airtel Payments Bank, Data Centres and revenues from digital services are shaping up. With a future proofed 5G network, we are well positioned to build a strong Airtel of the future,” he added.
iWorld
Talk to your telly: JioHotstar’s new AI voice feature reads your mood to suggest shows
The streaming giant ditches the scroll for a “conversational” AI that understands moods, cricket and Hinglish
MUMBAI: The era of the endless scroll may finally be over. JioHotstar has officially flicked the switch on its “Conversational Voice Discovery” (CVD) feature, a high-tech overhaul designed to turn the hunt for a Friday night film into a natural chat. Developed in a landmark partnership with OpenAI, the tool moves beyond clunky keyword searches, allowing users to find content by describing their mood, context or even the most bizarre viewing scenarios.
The feature is vision of Uday Shankar, vice chairman of JioStar, whose goal is to eliminate “content overload” by replacing the tedious, traditional scroll with natural dialogue. By leveraging ChatGPT’s ability to grasp context and cultural nuance, the new mobile interface allows users to bypass menus entirely, turning search into a seamless conversation.
The launch, which rolled out across India this month, sees a ChatGPT-powered interface integrated directly into the heart of the app. Instead of typing “action movie” into a sterile search bar, viewers can now speak to their devices as if they were asking a well-read friend for a tip. For now, the feature is exclusive to the mobile app, with a rollout for Connected TV (CTV) expected in later phases.
Beyond the keyword
The CVD feature is built on what JioStar calls “Multilingual Cognitive Search.” It is designed to interpret nuance rather than just matching text. If you tell the app, “I’ve had a long day, give me something mindless and funny,” it won’t just look for those words in a title; it will sift through 300,000 hours of library content to find a light-hearted sitcom or a stand-up special that fits the vibe.
The tech is natively multilingual, catering to India’s diverse linguistic landscape. Users can switch effortlessly between languages—asking for “Koi light-hearted comedy dikhao” (show me some light-hearted comedy) or requesting a “Thriller hai but zyada dark nahi chahiye” (a thriller that isn’t too dark).
Real-time curiosity and live sports
Perhaps the most ambitious aspect of the rollout is its integration with live sports. During a high-stakes cricket match, the AI acts as a digital companion. Fans can ask, “Who is the top scorer right now?” or “Show me that last wicket again,” and the system will pull the relevant data or clips instantly. It even attempts to explain the “why” behind the crowd’s energy, responding to prompts like, “Why is everyone reacting like that?” by contextualizing on-field events.
A shift in streaming strategy
The move is part of a broader reimagining of the entertainment experience following the massive merger between JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar. Uday Shankar noted that the goal is to make premium entertainment “truly accessible” by embedding AI at the core of the user journey. By anticipating culture and context, the platform hopes to kill off “decision fatigue.”
For OpenAI, the partnership represents a major play in the Indian market. Fidji Simo, the head of applications at OpenAI, said the goal was to turn a “one-way” passive consumption experience into a “deeply personal conversation.”
As the feature goes live for millions of subscribers, the message from Bombay House is clear: the remote control is becoming obsolete. Whether you’re looking for a show that “feels like a rainy Sunday afternoon” or a crime series with a “strong female lead but not too violent,” all you have to do is ask.
