Telecom Bharti Airtel on Tuesday reported a net profit before exceptional items of Rs 5,948 crore in the quarter ending June 30, up 13.9% over the Rs 5,223 crore reported in the January-March quarter.
The numbers were ahead of the average of analysts’ estimates on Bloomberg of Rs 5,660 crore and driven by a good performance in India, an increase in the average revenue per user (ARPU) and more 5G subscribers.
Driven primarily by the Indian operations, the firm’s consolidated revenue during the quarter stood at Rs 49,463 crore, up 3.3% quarter-on-quarter and 28.5% year-on-year. However, this fell slightly short of estimates of Rs 49, 762 crore. Bharti’s operating profit margin declined to 56.9%, compared to 57.2% in the previous quarter. The Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation) rose 2.8% sequentially to Rs 28,167 crore and 41.2% on a year-on-year basis.
ARPU hits Rs 250
After remaining flat sequentially in Q4FY25, Airtel’s ARPU increased 2% to Rs 250 from Rs 245 in the March quarter. The telco’s total mobile subscriber base increased to 362.8 million from 361.6 million Q4FY25, and monthly churn accelerated to 2.7% from 2.3%.
Gopal Vittal, vice-chairman and MD of Bharti Airtel said the India mobile business recorded a sequential growth of 2.9%, driven by continued focus on portfolio premiumisation and an additional day in the quarter.
“We added four million smartphone data customers and maintained an industry-leading ARPU of Rs 250 for Q1FY26,” Vittal said. He added that the telco’s homes business reported life- time high quarterly net additions of 939,000, a sequential revenue growth of 7.6%.
The telco added 3.9 million 4G/5G users during the quarter, taking the total to 280.7 million. Airtel continues to trail Reliance Jio in data consumption, with average usage per customer per month at 26.9 GB, compared to Jio’s 37 GB. The total data usage on Airtel’s network grew 8.4% q-o-q to 22.84 billion GB (Jio: 54.7 billion GB).
The average voice usage was 1, 142 minutes per user per month, down from 1, 163 minutes in Q4FY25. The company added 0.69 million postpaid users, taking the total to 26.57 million.
India mobile drives growth
The India operations contributed Rs 37,584 crore to total revenues, up 2.3% sequentially. Revenue from India mobile services rose 2.9% q-o-q to Rs 27, 396.6 crore.
Airtel Business revenue declined by 7.7% annually, as the company focused on quality revenues and discontinued low margin businesses. Underlying growth remains steady driven by both core connectivity and new age digital services, the telco said.