Bharti Airtel Q1 profit surges 43% to ₹5,948 cr on record home broadband growth, ARPU boost

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel's Q1’26 (April-June) performance was strong on account of robust growth in India and a rebound in Africa. The company's Q1’26 revenue at ₹49,463 crore grew 28.5% YoY, with India revenues recording 29% YoY growth at ₹37,585 crore, thanks to 21.6% growth in mobile revenues on improved realisations and customer additions. Airtel's consolidated net profit for the quarter grew 43% YoY to ₹5,947.9 crore from ₹4,160 crore a year earlier.

Bharti Airtel's ARPU for the quarter stood at ₹250 as compared to ₹211 in Q1’25, driven by strong momentum in both India and Africa. Consolidated EBITDA for Q1’26 at ₹28,167 crore with an EBITDA margin of 56.9%.

Gopal Vittal, Vice-Chairman and MD, said the company added 4 million smartphone data customers and maintained an average revenue per user (ARPU) of ₹250 for Q1FY26. "The underlying growth trajectory remains steady at a sequential growth of 2.0 % with continued improvement in funnel and orderbook. Our digital network across India and Africa now serves over 600 million customers."

Fortifying its leadership in the postpaid segment, with net additions of 0.7 million customers in Q1 26, Airtel's total customer base stood at 26.6 million. Its share in the smartphone data customers also experienced sustained growth, with an increase of 21.3 million users, an 8.2% YoY rise.

Airtel installed 1.8K additional towers and 7.5K mobile broadband stations in Q1, the company said.

Airtel's homes business reported solid performance, with a lifetime high quarterly net additions of 939K, resulting in a record revenue growth at 25.7% YoY, driven by record-high customer additions. During the quarter, Airtel's accelerated expansion of its fixed wireless access (FWA) network led to a total Wifi addition of 939 K customers, bringing the total customer base to 11 million.

Airtel Business revenue, however, registered a decline at 7.7% YoY as the company focuses on quality revenues and also on discontinuing low-margin business. The telco says its digital TV revenue came in at ₹763 crore, with a customer base of 15.7 million, which led to a consolidated EBITDA margin of 56.9%. Amid the Q1 FY26 financial results, shares of Bharti Airtel closed 0.82% up at ₹1,930.30 on the NSE today.