What happened
Bharti Airtel on Thursday, 5 November 2026, reported a 24% rise in consolidated profit to ₹10,710 crore for the second quarter ended September 2026. A year earlier it earned ₹8,651 crore. According to reports in ThePrint and The Hindu, the company cited higher per-user revenue after a rejig in mobile tariffs.
Consolidated revenue from operations rose 16.7% to about ₹60,878 crore, from ₹52,145 crore in the same quarter last year. The Hindu reported that India revenue grew 9.4% to ₹42,308 crore.
Times of India reported that the share price closed 0.2% lower at ₹2,062.05 on the BSE on Thursday, while the broader market rose 2.6%.
Key operating numbers
- ARPU: Average revenue per user, the monthly revenue a telecom firm earns from each customer, rose to ₹271 from ₹256, up 5.8%.
- India mobile service revenue: up 10.1% year on year, per the company as quoted by The Hindu.
- Customers: the global base grew 11% to 69.25 crore. India mobile customers rose 3.6% to 37.72 crore, and home services (including fixed-line broadband) grew about 29% to 1.53 crore.
- Postpaid: record net additions of 12 lakh, taking the base to 3.12 crore.
- Data usage: per-customer mobile data use rose 28.8% to 36.5 GB.
What it means for you
If you are an Airtel customer, the ARPU figure shows that the average customer is now paying more per month than a year ago. The company linked this to the tariff rejig and to customers moving to higher-value plans.
If you hold telecom shares or funds that do, the quarter shows profit growing faster than the year-ago base and debt coming down. This is a report on results, not a view on the stock.
Spending and debt
Consolidated capital expenditure (money spent on networks and assets) was ₹12,467 crore, of which ₹9,908 crore was in India. Airtel said it deployed 497 towers and 11,684 mobile broadband base stations in the quarter. It also invested ₹2,826 crore in a land parcel for data centre expansion.
Net debt fell about 14% to ₹1.66 lakh crore from ₹1.94 lakh crore a year earlier.
Background
Executive vice-chairman Gopal Vittal said revenue rose 4.0% over the previous quarter, with Africa growing 6.7% in constant currency, and that the India business grew 2.7% sequentially. He said the land parcel is a step towards a goal of 1 GW of data centre capacity.
For more on the business model, see our explainer on how Bharti Airtel earns. For a rival’s quarter, read about Jio Platforms’ Q2 results, and see our guide to EBITDA.
