Bharti Airtel is planning a significant expansion of its data centre business, targeting a 25% market share over the medium term, while indicating that radio network spending has moderated after the peak phase of the 5G rollout, the company management said during a post-earnings call with analysts.
Airtel’s data centre arm Nxtra is targeting a capacity of around 1 gigawatt over the next three to four years, a sharp increase from the current 120–130 megawatts. At present levels, Nxtra has an estimated market share of about 12% in a fragmented domestic data centre market.
Pivot to Infrastructure
Management said the planned scale-up is aligned with rising demand from cloud service providers, enterprise customers and newer artificial intelligence-led workloads.
Speaking on the call, Gopal Vittal, executive vice chairman of Airtel, said the company views data centres as a strategic adjacency to its core connectivity business, particularly for enterprise clients, allowing it to offer integrated solutions across fibre, subsea cables, cloud and digital services.
“In the next three to four years, we will have a gigawatt capacity, which will give us around 25% market share. We are committed to stepping up investments in data centres. While I cannot provide precise capex guidance at this point in time, you will see increased investments in this segment,” Vittal said.
On the regulatory front, Vittal said Airtel is awaiting a response from the department of telecommunications on its request seeking parity in the treatment of adjusted gross revenue dues. He said the company has written to the DoT highlighting issues related to computation errors and seeking equal treatment following relief measures extended elsewhere in the sector.
Post-5G Fiscal Discipline
The company would evaluate follow-up steps after receiving a response, he added.
Airtel also outlined how its capital expenditure profile is evolving after the intensive investment cycle triggered by the 5G rollout. Vittal said the company had incurred elevated capex of around Rs 34,000 crore during the peak rollout years. Radio capex for new sites has slowed as coverage is largely complete, though investments in transport and fibre will continue.
He added that as 5G device penetration increases, with nearly 90% of smartphones currently being shipped being 5G-ready, spectrum re-farming will require investments over time, even as overall spending becomes more targeted and efficiency-driven.