NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom service provider, reported a 55% decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 6,630.5 crore for the third quarter that ended in December 2025 (Q3 FY26).
The sharp year-on-year decline was primarily due to a net exceptional gain recorded in the same quarter last year, following the reclassification of Indus Towers from an associate to a subsidiary, which had boosted profits in Q3 FY25.
Despite the profit decline, Airtel posted strong operational performance. Quarterly revenue from operations rose 19.6% to Rs 53,982 crore, compared with Rs 45,129.3 crore in the year-ago period.
Airtel’s India revenues increased to Rs 39,226 crore, registering a 13.2 per cent year-on-year growth and a 1.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter rise.
The company’s consolidated EBITDA grew 25.2 per cent YoY to Rs 31,144 crore in Q3 FY26. The consolidated EBITDA margin stood at 57.7 per cent, while the India EBITDA margin improved to 60.4 per cent during the quarter.
“India mobile recorded sequential revenue growth of 1.9 per cent, driven by our focus on acquiring high-quality customers and a consistently improving portfolio mix. We added 4.4 million customers during the quarter, with an industry-leading ARPU of Rs 259,” said Gopal Vittal, Executive Vice Chairman, Bharti Airtel.
Airtel’s Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), a key industry metric, increased to Rs 259 in Q3 FY26 from Rs 245 in Q3 FY25, marking a 5.7 per cent year-on-year rise. The ARPU remains the highest among its peers.
The telco added 0.62 million customers during the quarter, taking its total customer base to 28.1 million.
During the quarter, Airtel deployed 1,147 towers and 16,338 mobile broadband base stations. Over the last nine months, the company added 5,457 towers and deployed approximately 30,000 kilometres of fibre, strengthening its digital infrastructure.
Bharti Airtel announced a strategic partnership with Google to establish India’s first Artificial Intelligence (AI) hub in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. The company also entered into a strategic collaboration with IBM to enhance its recently launched Airtel Cloud platform.
Airtel’s consolidated net debt-to-EBITDA ratio (annualised) improved to 1.47 times, compared with 1.98 times as of December 31, 2024.