Bharti Airtel's Q2 FY26: Strategic Growth Amidst Digital Transformation

Bharti Airtel, one of India's leading telecommunications giants, has reported a robust performance for the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2026, ending September 30, 2025. The company delivered consolidated revenues of ₹52,145.4 Crore, marking a significant 25.7% year-on-year growth and a healthy 5.4% sequential increase. This strong financial showing was underpinned by broad-based momentum across both its Indian and African operations. Consolidated EBITDA surged by 35.9% YoY to ₹29,919 Crore, achieving an impressive EBITDA margin of 57.4%. The consolidated Net Income before exceptional items stood at ₹6,792 Crore, reflecting a 73.6% YoY growth. These figures highlight Airtel's sustained focus on premiumization, disciplined capital allocation, and operational excellence.

Segmental Performance and Strategic Initiatives

India's business segments were key drivers of this growth. Mobile Services India contributed ₹2,811.67 Crore, representing 53.92% of the consolidated revenue. The segment saw a 13.2% YoY revenue increase, fueled by ARPU improvement and continued smartphone data customer acquisition. Homes Services demonstrated robust growth, with revenues increasing by 30.2% YoY and a record 951K net customer additions in Q2 FY26, bringing its revenue to ₹186.46 Crore. Airtel Business, while seeing a 6.7% YoY revenue decrease to ₹527.60 Crore due to a strategic shift towards quality revenues, reported strong sequential growth of 4.3% driven by broad-based improvements across segments. Passive Infrastructure Services, contributing ₹822.22 Crore, grew 1.6% QoQ, benefiting from new site rollouts and tenancy additions.

Africa operations also delivered a solid performance, with revenues of ₹1,367.95 Crore, reflecting a 24.2% YoY growth in constant currency. The EBITDA margin in Africa stood at 48.8%, up 238 bps YoY. The company's overall customer base expanded to approximately 624 million across 15 countries, an increase of 10.7% YoY.

Bharti Airtel is aggressively pursuing digital transformation through several key initiatives. In a landmark move, Airtel partnered with Perplexity to offer a complimentary 12-month subscription to Perplexity Pro to all its 360 million mobile customers, aiming to democratize AI access and enhance user productivity. Furthermore, Airtel's digital arm, Xtelify, launched 'Airtel Cloud', a sovereign, telco-grade cloud platform in India, promising up to 40% optimization in cloud spending for Indian businesses. This aligns with their strategic partnership with IBM, announced on October 15, 2025, to augment Airtel Cloud capabilities with IBM Power systems for AI workloads and mission-critical applications in regulated industries. Additionally, Airtel and Google are jointly establishing India's first mega AI hub and data center in Visakhapatnam, a $15 billion investment over five years (2026-2030), which includes a purpose-built data center and a Cable Landing Station (CLS) to host Google's international subsea cables.

Financial Summary (Q2 FY26 - Consolidated)

Operational Excellence and Future Outlook

Airtel's operational performance continues to be strong. Smartphone data customers increased by 22.2 million YoY and 5.1 million QoQ, now accounting for 78% of the overall mobile customer base. Mobile ARPU increased to ₹256 from ₹233 in Q2 FY25, driven by continued premiumization. Mobile data consumption grew 26.6% YoY, with average consumption reaching 28.3 GB per month per customer. The company also added 0.95 million postpaid net adds in Q2 FY26, strengthening its position in the premium segment.

In terms of network expansion, Airtel added 2,479 towers and 20,841 mobile broadband base stations during the quarter. Over the past 12 months, they deployed 12,796 new towers and rolled out 44,104 kms of fiber, bolstering their future-ready digital infrastructure. The company's AI-enabled RAN engine is optimizing energy usage, leading to greater energy savings, and their anti-fraud initiatives have significantly reduced financial losses for customers by nearly 70%, as endorsed by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Management is optimistic about the home broadband market, projecting it to grow to 100 million connected homes in the medium term from the current 50 million. They are accelerating home pass deployments, targeting 2.5 million homes per quarter, and focusing on upgrading 90 million credit-scored customers to postpaid services. While acknowledging challenges like the structural one-size-fits-all pricing in India and customer losses in Digital TV due to seasonality, management remains committed to disciplined capital allocation and leveraging digital capabilities to drive growth and enhance customer experience. The recent expansion of connectivity to Ladakh's remote villages of Man & Merak further underscores Airtel's commitment to bridging the connectivity divide across India.

Strategic Clarity and Sustained Growth

Bharti Airtel's Q2 FY26 results underscore a period of strategic clarity and sustained growth. The company is not just delivering strong financial numbers but is also making significant investments in next-generation technologies like AI and cloud, expanding its network footprint, and enhancing customer value propositions. These efforts, combined with a disciplined approach to capital and operational efficiency, position Airtel strongly to capitalize on India's digital future and maintain its leadership in the telecommunications sector.