Bharti Airtel recorded gains across all units in its fiscal Q3 2025 (ending 31 December 2024), with profit up on an exceptional gain on Indus Towers, which became its subsidiary in November 2024.

Net profit jumped nearly five-fold year-on-year to INR147.6 billion ($1.7 billion), boosted by the one-time gain of INR75.5 billion from the consolidation of the tower unit. Total revenue increased 13 per cent to INR468.8 billion.

Vice chair and MD Gopal Vittal stated although its balance sheet remained solid due to cash generation and prudent capital allocation, “we believe the industry needs further tariff repair to ensure sustained investments and long-term value creation”.

Indian revenue improved 19 per cent to INR330.8 billion, with mobile service revenue up 21 per cent to INR272.7 billion, supported by continued ARPU growth of 17.8 per cent to INR245.

Mobile subscribers increased 3.4 per cent to 414 million and average data usage 11.6 per cent to 24.5GB a month.

Its base station count increased by 73,276 to nearly 979,000.

B2B revamp
The operator’s B2B unit posted 9 per cent growth to INR56.5 billion.

Vittal explained the company is in the middle of re-tooling the Airtel Business portfolio by stepping-up investments in digital services across cloud, security and IoT, while dropping low-margin commodity voice and wholesale offerings.

He added the move is likely to impact the top-line of the business in the coming quarters, but would have an “insignificant impact on the margins”.

In Africa, revenue rose 21 per cent to $1.3 billion.

ARPU increased 11.9 per cent to $2.40.

Its mobile user base rose 7.8 per cent to 163.1 million.

Airtel Money revenue grew 31.2 per cent to $269 million, with active customers rising 18.3 per cent to 44.3 million.

It added 13,825 base stations, taking the total to 133,641 units.