Bharti Airtel Q3 Net Profit Falls 55% on Exceptional Items; ARPU Rises to ₹259

Bharti Airtel on Thursday said its consolidated net profit plunged about 55% to ₹6,630.5 crore in the third quarter ended December 2025, compared with ₹14,781.2 crore in the year-ago period. The decline was largely due to a high base in the corresponding quarter last year, when the company reported a net exceptional gain following the reclassification of Indus Towers from an associate to a subsidiary.

Excluding exceptional items, the telecom major reported a 25.5% year-on-year rise in Q3 FY26 net profit. This marked the seventh straight quarterly increase, driven by subscribers upgrading to higher-margin plans and the addition of 4.4 million users during the quarter.

The group also provided ₹256.8 crore towards the financial impact of the new Labour Codes, leading to higher provisions for gratuity and compensated absences. The related tax credit of ₹65 crore has been included under tax expense.

During the quarter ended December 31, tax expense also included an exceptional tax charge of ₹137.7 crore due to Pillar Two tax implications for subsidiaries operating in jurisdictions with effective tax rates below 15%. This was partly offset by a tax credit of ₹48.7 crore following a favourable ruling by the Delhi Income Tax Tribunal, which allowed spectrum usage charges as revenue expenditure for one of the group’s subsidiaries.

Quarterly revenue from operations rose 19.6% year-on-year to ₹53,982 crore from ₹45,129.3 crore. India revenues stood at ₹39,226 crore, up 13.2% year-on-year, while India mobile revenue increased 9.1%, supported by better realisations and a larger customer base. Average revenue per user improved to ₹259 from ₹245 in Q3 FY25.

“India mobile recorded sequential growth of 1.9%, driven by our focus on winning with quality customers and a consistently improving portfolio mix. We added 4.4 million customers with an industry-leading ARPU of ₹259,” said Gopal Vittal, Executive Vice Chairman, Bharti Airtel.

Consolidated EBITDA rose 25.2% year-on-year to ₹31,144 crore in Q3 FY26, with margins at 57.7% overall and 60.4% in India.

The company also strengthened its postpaid leadership with net additions of 0.62 million customers, taking the total base to 28.1 million. Smartphone data customers increased by 20.8 million over the past year, marking a 7.7% year-on-year rise.

Network expansion remained strong, with 1,147 towers and 16,338 mobile broadband base stations added during the quarter. Over the past nine months, Airtel has deployed 5,457 towers and around 30,000 km of fibre to bolster its digital infrastructure.

The homes segment delivered robust growth, with revenue rising 32.6% year-on-year on steady customer additions. During the quarter, 1.2 million customers were added, taking the total homes customer base to 13.1 million.

“Africa delivered yet another quarter of exceptional performance, with constant currency revenue growth of 5.8%. One of the reasons for our stepped-up performance in Africa is the deployment of our home-grown digital stack, which has sharpened our go-to-market excellence, the secret sauce of Airtel,” Vittal added.