Synopsis: Bharti Airtel’s India business gives the company a solid foundation, but all the excitement is happening in Africa. Revenue, EBITDA, ARPU, subscribers numbers are climbing faster. With so much room for more people to get online and new ways to make money popping up, you have to wonder: Is Airtel Africa turning into the real powerhouse for the whole company?
Bharti Airtel is expanding rapidly. In recent quarters, the company has provided good performance in terms of its operational performances which was enhanced by an increase in its revenues, improving margins, and increasing its subscriber base.
But, upon closer examination of the figures, there is an interesting geographical divergence. Although the scale and stability are maintained by India, it seems that Africa is accelerating its growth momentum. This leads to a key question, namely, has Airtel Africa recently become the growth engine of the success of Bharti Airtel as a whole?
To answer this, we must first look at the consolidated financial performance and then look very closely at how India and Africa are making different contributions towards the company’s growth story.
Consolidated Financials
Consolidated revenue from operations in Q3 FY26 of Bharti Airtel came at Rs 53,982 crore as against Rs 45,129 crore in Q3 FY25, which showed a good annual growth of 20 percent. Revenue increased by 3.5 percent on a sequential basis from Rs 52,145 crore.
At the operating level, the performance was even higher. EBITDA was at Rs 31,144 crore in Q3 FY26 with a year-on-year growth of 25 percent as against 24,880 crore in Q3 FY25. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, EBITDA increased by 4.1 percent from Rs 29,919 crore.
Profitability, however, gave a different scenario. Net profit was down by a sharp 47 percent in Q3 FY26 to Rs 8,503 crore, compared to that of Q3 FY25 at Rs 16,135 crore. Net profit on a sequential basis fell by 1.7 percent from Rs 8,651 crore. However, the profit decline was mainly due to higher network operating costs, statutory fees and employee expenses.
Geographical split
However, the actual difference in performance can be better understood by the division between India and Africa. Its African division reported a revenue (constant currency) of Rs 14,337 crore in Q3 FY26, up by 25 percent from Rs 11,493 crore in Q3 FY25. Additionally, on a QoQ basis, it reported a slight growth of nearly 6 percent from Rs 13,545 crore.
Coming to its operating profit (EBITDA), it reported an EBITDA of Rs 7,065 crore in Q3 FY26, up by a staggering 31 percent from Rs 5,391 crore in Q3 FY25. Additionally, on a QoQ basis, it reported a slight growth of 6.80 percent from Rs 6,615 crore
Moving on to compare this with India, the Indian division made revenue figures of Rs 39,225 crore in Q3 FY26, versus 36,402 crore in Q3 FY25, which is an 8 percent year on year growth. Revenue on a quarter-to-quarter basis increased by 1.4 percent from Rs 38,690 crore. Though growth is positive, it is evident that it is slower than that of Africa.
Regarding the operating profitability, India posted an EBITDA of Rs 23,676 crore in Q3 FY26, slightly less than in Q3 FY25, at Rs 24,027 crore, which is 1 percent lower than last year. Sequentially, EBITDA increased by 2 percent, from Rs 23,204 crore. This implies that India is stable and in a mature stage where it is growing at a moderate, as opposed to an explosive rate.
Subscriber base
Although India is still the greater contributor in absolute terms, Africa is obviously increasing at a faster rate in relative terms. This deviation is even more evident in the case of subscriber growth.
In India, the mobile services customer base of Airtel recorded a population of 36.85 crore in Q3 FY26, as compared to 35.66 crore users in Q3 FY25, which represents 3.4 percent year on year growth. The number of customers expanded by 1.2 percent on a sequential basis, out of 36.42 crore users. In this quarter, the firm gained more than 43.51 lakh users in this segment.
Further, Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), which is a major telecom KPI, increased 5.4 percent in a year and 1.1 percent in a quarter and stood at Rs 259. This rise in ARPU is an indicator of tariff changes and premiumization in the Indian market, but it is growing at moderate rates since the penetration rates are high.
Conversely, Airtel Africa has a customer base in mobile services of about 17.93 crore users in Q3 FY26 as compared to 16.31 crore users in Q3 FY25, which is a positive growth of 10 percent year-on-year. It had increased 3.2 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis from 17.38 crore users. Africa had an addition of more than 55.73 lakh users in this quarter, and this is much higher compared to the net additions in India.
Growth in ARPU in Africa is 11.8 percent year-on-year and 2.4 percent quarter-to-quarter, and is at $2.5, which is roughly Rs 225. The ARPU growth rate is higher than that in India by more than two times, which shows increasing monetisation efficiency in African markets.
This signifies that its African user base grew by almost three times more than its Indian base, highlighting strong traction in its African market. However, its customers on a consolidated basis, by this we mean that Airtel India’s all divisions, such as mobile services, home services, Digital TV Services, Network and Coverage, etc., grew by 12.6 percent YoY and by 3.6 percent QoQ. And africa on the other hand, grew its base by 10 percent YoY and 3.2 percent QoQ.
Data Penetration
This structural growth prospect is even more evident with data penetration levels. In India, nearly eighty percent of all Airtel users already use the mobile data services, which means out of 10 Airtel consumers, 8 persons use data. The data usage is approximately 30GB per user per month, which is also the highest data-consuming telecom market in the world. This suggests that India is a mature market that has been highly penetrated and that it cannot be expanded dramatically through volumes.
In Africa, however, mobile data consumption can be used by only 46 per cent of users, which means out of 10 Airtel Africa consumers, 4.6 persons use data. This implies that a significant percentage of the customers are still mainly using voice services. The monthly data consumption is about 9GB, which is almost one third of what India uses.
This distinction is a huge opportunity in terms of monetisation. The value of data users is greater than that of voice-only users. A voice-only customer in Africa brings about 1.10, and a data customer brings about 2.70, which is more than twice as much as the contribution to revenue. Thus, once a user has moved out of the basic 2G voice phone to a 4G data plan, Airtel can increase its revenue/customer significantly without bringing in a new subscriber.
With the spread of smartphone usage and proliferation of digital services in African markets, the ARPU growth and data monetisation runway is still large. This leaves Africa to be a structurally earlier-stage telecom market with greater growth upside over the long term than India, which has a more mature ecosystem.
Key risks
Nonetheless, the growth of Africa is not free of risks. Currency volatility is one of the threats. Airtel receives its revenues in different African currencies, and the consolidated financials are in Indian Rupees. When local currencies become weak against the Rupee, reported profits may reduce even in cases where the performance may be high.
Consider, as an example, Airtel makes ZAR 1,000 crore in South Africa. In the case of an exchange rate of 1 INR = 5.7 ZAR, this would be recorded as being about Rs 175 crore in India. The same amount of ZAR 1,000 crore at the exchange rate 1 INR = 7 ZAR would, however be reported as about 140 crore at the exchange rate 1 INR = 7 ZAR. Business performance is not affected, but the profits are reported to have decreased because of currency depreciation. Such currency devaluation risk may bring about volatility in consolidated results.
Other highlights
Telecom is not the only layer of growth that Airtel is developing; data centres in India are also being established by the company. The company seeks to grow its market share of data centres by 12 percent to 25 percent in the next 3-4 years. This program is getting even more significant because the growth in wireless revenue in India has fallen to approximately 6 percent as opposed to approximately 10 percent in the previous years. Digital infrastructural diversification will lessen the dependence on conventional income sources of telecoms.
This balanced approach is also portrayed in capital allocation. Capex of Airtel India in the recent era was 9,249 crore, signifying further investment in the network and infrastructure. In the meantime, Airtel Africa’s capex was at Rs 2,537 crore, which helped it to grow in the emerging markets. This capital allocation indicates that India is the stability engine of core, Africa is the engine of incremental growth and data centres are a long-term strategic investment.
Overall, Bharti Airtel is a good model of business diversification. Its Indian telecom network business ensures stability with a huge and saturated number of customers and guarantees a stable cash flow. In the meantime, Africa presents a greater growth opportunity that is supported by the increasing number of subscribers, the rising ARPU, and the rising data rates. The higher rates of growth and the reduced rate of data use in Africa, although maintaining a smaller percentage by absolute measures than India does, offer a considerable monetisation potential in the long term.
Hence, even though India is still the economic powerhouse of Bharti Airtel, Africa is steadily becoming a growth driver. This stability, growth impetus, and diversification combination has combined to reinforce the overall business model of Airtel and has placed it on a path of long-term growth.
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