Bharti Airtel, India's second-largest telecom operator, on Thursday reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 8,887.5 crore for the second quarter of FY27, the quarter ended September 30, 2026 — a rise of 8.8 per cent from Rs 8,167.4 crore in the previous quarter, Upstox reported from the company's results.

Source: Upstox

The profit was smaller than analysts expected. Reuters reported that higher network operating costs offset the gains from subscriber additions and from users upgrading to costlier plans, even as the company kept adding customers across India and Africa.

Source: Reuters via TradingView

Revenue from operations rose 4 per cent from the previous quarter to Rs 60,878 crore, against Rs 58,539 crore in Q1 FY27 and Rs 52,145 crore in the same quarter a year earlier, driven by momentum in both the India and Africa businesses.

Rs 8,887.5 croreConsolidated net profit, Q2 FY27
Rs 60,878 croreRevenue from operations
Rs 271ARPU, up from Rs 256 a year earlier
Rs 34,946 croreEBITDA, up 5% on the quarter (57.4% margin)

Average revenue per user (ARPU), the key telecom metric, expanded to Rs 271 from Rs 256 a year earlier, and India mobile revenue surged 10.1 per cent year on year on strong customer additions and improved realisation. Airtel's India business revenue rose 9.4 per cent year on year to Rs 42,308 crore, helped by its premiumisation strategy in mobile and by momentum in Homes and Airtel Business.

Consolidated capital expenditure stood at Rs 12,467 crore, including Rs 9,908 crore in India. The company also invested Rs 2,826 crore in a strategic land parcel for data centre expansion in India. It deployed 497 towers and 11,684 mobile broadband base stations during the quarter; over the past year its network expansion has covered 5,649 towers and 44,718 kilometres of fibre.

Gopal Vittal, Executive Vice Chairman of Bharti Airtel, said: "Our new growth engines continue to gain momentum. Our investment in a strategic land parcel during the quarter marks another important step towards realising our ambition of building 1 GW of data centre capacity. We continue to maintain a strong and resilient balance sheet, anchored by robust cash generation and disciplined capital allocation."

Airtel shares had closed 0.52 per cent lower at Rs 2,056.90 on the National Stock Exchange on Thursday; the earnings were announced after market hours.