Indian wireless carrier Bharti Airtel Ltd reported a 13 percent rise in second-quarter (ending September 2021) revenue on Tuesday, boosted by additions in its 4G subscriber base, higher data consumption, and stronger revenue per user.

The company’s average revenue per user (ARPU) — a key performance indicator in the telecoms industry — came in at Rs. 153 for the second quarter, up from Rs. 143 a year ago. Rival Reliance Jio’s ARPU for the same period was Rs. 143.6, Reuters reported.

Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom firm by subscriber base, has benefited from higher user additions and a jump in data usage due to remote working trends during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It added 8.1 million 4G users in the second quarter from the previous quarter to touch 192.5 million subscribers  — making it 60 percent of its overall customer case. Mobile data consumption, the company said, surged by 47.5 percent from a year ago.

The company had also undertaken some hikes in its tariffs earlier this year. In July, it scrapped the entry-level prepaid recharge of Rs. 49 and set the base plan at Rs. 79.

Airtel’s consolidated revenue from operations was Rs. 283.26 billion ($3.79 billion) for the quarter ended September 30, compared with Rs. 250.60 billion a year ago, according to its exchange filing. Analysts on average had expected revenue of Rs. 277.73 billion.

Its net profit for the second quarter was Rs. 11.34 billion, compared with a loss of Rs. 7.63 billion in the same period last year.

Airtel, during the quarter, had also said it would invest Rs. 50 billion to expand its data centre business to meet customer demand in and around India.

Homes business posted strong double-digit growth of 21.3 percent on an annualised basis, while digital TV business grew by 5.7 percent y-o-y. The company added 467,000 net new customers in this quarter, which is the highest quarterly addition for the company. The total customer base now stands at 3.8 million and the company has its operations across 523 cities of India.