Bharti Airtel Q3FY26 results: Net profit falls 55% to ₹6,630 crore

Net profit declined year-on-year due to last year's exceptional gain, even as revenues, ARPU and EBITDA margins continued to improve

Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom company, rang up a 55 per cent fall in net profit to ₹6,630 crore in October-December 2025, with the steep decline attributed to impact of the new labour Codes, coupled with high base of the quarter a year earlier. 

In the quarter ended December 2024, the company made a profit of ₹14,760 crore, which included a net exceptional gain following the reclassification of Indus Towers from being an “associate” to a “subsidiary”. 

In the quarter ended September 2025, the carrier’s net profit was ₹6,791 crore, down 2.4 per cent.  

Bharti Airtel noted the impact of the new labour Codes — of ₹257 crore — in the quarter’s financials, attributed to increase in provision for gratuity and compensated absences. 

 

Consolidated revenues for the third quarter came in at ₹53,982 crore, up 15.15 per cent from ₹46,878 crore in the same period last year.Sequentially revenues were up 3.5 per cent from ₹52,145 crore.  

Average revenue per user (Arpu), a monthly metric of profitability for telecom service providers globally, increased to ₹259 for the quarter, up 5.4 per cent from ₹245 in the same period last financial year.Arpu was ₹256 for the quarter ended September. 

Airtel’s Arpu remained the highest among peers.  

Consolidated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) increased 25.2 per cent year-on-year to reach ₹31,144 crore in the third quarter. 

The consolidated Ebitda margin stood at 57.7 per cent while that for India reached 60.4 per cent. 

Bharti Airtel’s India business reported revenues of ₹39,226 crore, a nearly 13.2 per cent year-on-year increase, led by improved realisations and a growing customer base. 

The telco’s customer base rose 3.4 per cent to 368.5 million, up 1.2 per cent sequentially. 

Smartphone-data customers increased by 20.8 million year-on-year, and 5.2 million sequentially, accounting for 79 per cent of mobile customers, the carrier said. 

In the current quarter, 1,147 towers and 16,338 mobile broadband base stations were deployed. 

Capex for the quarter was at ₹9,249 crore.  

Gopal Vittal, executive vice-chairman, said: “Our balance sheet strength, reinforced by strong cash generation and sustained deleveraging, positions us well to invest in new growth opportunities.”  

Africa’s performance in the quarter was exceptional 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, which has sharpened our market excellence, the secret sauce of Airtel,” he added.  

The company’s home business maintained strong growth momentum, crossing revenues of ₹2,000 crore. Airtel added 1.2 million customers, “our highest ever quarterly addition”. The IPTV business saw acceleration in net addition.

Airtel Business recorded a revenue growth rate of 1.5 per cent sequentially.