Mumbai, Feb 5 Leading telecom company Bharti Airtel on Thursday reported 55 per cent drop in net profit at Rs 6,630.5 crore (after exceptional items) for the third quarter of fiscal year 2026 on year-on-year basis, compared to Rs 14,781.2 crore in the same period last fiscal.
The decline in profit is attributed to a high base effect from the previous year. In the December quarter of FY24, Airtel had recorded an exceptional gain of Rs 7,545.6 crore.
Additionally, the company's profit was impacted by an additional expense of Rs 256.8 crore due to the new Labour Codes.
On a quarterly basis, the company's profit decreased by 2.3 per cent. In the September quarter of FY26, the company's profit was Rs 6,791.7 crore.
The company's total revenue in the December quarter stood at Rs 54,683.9 crore, a 19.92 per cent increase compared to Rs 45,599 crore in the same period of the previous fiscal year.
The company's total expenses in the December quarter of the current fiscal year were Rs 23,198.8 crore -- compared to Rs 20,532.7 crore in the December quarter of FY25. This represents a 12.98 per cent increase in expenses year-on-year.
“India revenue including passive infrastructure services increased by 1.4 per cent sequentially. Africa delivered yet another quarter of exceptional performance with constant currency revenue growth of 5.8 per cent. One of the reasons for our stepped-up performance in Africa is the deployment of our home-grown digital stack that has sharpened our go to market excellence, the secret sauce of Airtel,” said Gopal Vittal, Executive Vice Chairman.
Bharti Airtel reported that its average revenue per user (ARPU) reached Rs 259 in the December quarter, up from Rs 256 in September and Rs 245 in December 2024.
In the December quarter, 26,056 million GB of data was consumed on the company's network. This represents a 6.6 per cent increase compared to the 24,446 million GB of data in the September quarter and a 29.2 per cent increase compared to the 20,174 million GB of data in the December quarter of the previous year.
Data consumption per user in the December quarter was 29.8 GB per month. This is 5 per cent higher than the 28.3 GB per month in the September quarter and 21.5 per cent higher than the 24.5 GB in the December quarter of the previous year.
Airtel's employee count decreased on both quarterly and annual basis. In the December quarter of FY26, the company had 24,186 employees. This figure is 205 less than in the September quarter of the current fiscal year and 340 less than in the December quarter of FY25.
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