Bharti Airtel net Q3 profit sinks 55% to `6,631 crore

New Delhi: Bharti Airtel on Thursday said its consolidated net profit plunged by about 55 per cent to Rs 6,630.5 crore in the third quarter ended December 2025, mainly due to higher network operating costs, statutory fees and employees’ expenses.

The company’s consolidated profit, attributed to the owners of the parent, was Rs 14,781.2 crore in the year-ago period, according to a regulatory filing.

Bharti Airtel’s capital expenditure during the reported quarter grew by about 28 per cent to Rs 11,787 crore from around Rs 9,161 crore in the December 2024 quarter. The company’s capital expenditure in India grew by 16 per cent to Rs 9,249.5 crore from Rs 7,979.5 crore.

The company’s outgo on license fee and spectrum charges in the December 2025 quarter grew by about 7 per cent to Rs 3,846 crore from around Rs 3,570 crore.

Expense on employees increased by 21 per cent to Rs 1,958 crore from Rs 1,608 crore, even though its total headcount declined marginally to 28,567 from 28,715 on a year-on-year basis.

India’s second-largest telecom company clocked a quarterly revenue from operations of Rs 53,982 crore, 19.6 per cent higher than Rs 45,129.3 crore it posted in the year-ago period.

Bharti Airtel Executive Vice Chairman Gopal Vittal said the third quarter marked another strong quarter, with consolidated revenue of Rs 53,982 crore, a growth of 3.5 per cent sequentially, underpinning the company’s strategy of a diversified and resilient portfolio.

“India revenue, including passive infrastructure services, increased by 1.4 per cent sequentially. Africa delivered yet another quarter of exceptional performance with constant currency revenue growth of 5.8 per cent. One of the reasons for our stepped-up performance in Africa is the deployment of our homegrown digital stack that has sharpened our go-to-market excellence,” Vittal said.

Airtel’s India revenue grew to Rs 39,226 crore, up 13.2 per cent on a year-on-year basis.

The company’s India mobile revenue recorded a 9.1 per cent increase, led by improved realisations and a growing customer base.

Bharti Airtel’s customer base increased by 11.8 per cent to 57.6 crore in the quarter, with India tally increasing by 12.6 per cent to 41.38 crore and Africa business recording 10 per cent growth in customer base to 17.93 crore.

The company’s home services customer base, which comprises mainly fixed line broadband services, jumped 42 per cent compared to the growth in the mobile segment to 1.3 crore.

The mobile user base of Bharti Airtel in India grew by 3.4 per cent year-on-year to 36.85 crore.

Bharti Airtel recorded a 5.4 per cent increase in ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) -- a key matrix of growth for a telecom services firm. The ARPU in India grew to Rs 259 during the quarter compared to Rs 245 a year ago.

The company reported 11.4 per cent growth in the postpaid user base to 2.8 crore.

Data usage per customer of Bharti Airtel’s mobile network in India grew by 29.2 per cent to 25.44 GB in the reported quarter from 19.7 Gb in the year-ago period. The net debt of the company reduced by about 7 per cent to Rs 1,82 lakh crore from Rs 1.96 lakh crore in the December 2024 quarter.