Bharti Airtel Ltd. reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit as gains from tariff hikes failed to offset the drag from a one-time charges due to foreign exchange losses.
bharti airtel
India’s No.2 wireless carrier, led by billionaire Sunil Mittal, almost trebled its net income to 35.9 billion rupees ($427 million) for the quarter ended Sep. 30 from the same period last year, according to a filing Monday.
It still fell short of the average 43.98 billion-rupee profit estimated by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
The operator took a one-time expense of 8.54 billion rupees for the quarter on account of net foreign exchange loss due to currency devaluation in group units.
Revenue rose 12% to 414.73 billion rupees, beating estimates slightly. Total costs also climbed 12% to 196.3 billion rupees, the filing said.
The average revenue per user, or ARPU, for India operations was 233 rupees, a jump of 10% from the preceding quarter.
It’s a far cry from the 300-rupee mark that Bharti has been flagging for a while as the minimum needed for financial stability of the telecom operators.
The latest quarterly earnings are coming on a low base. Last year’s September quarter profit was also hit by a one-off expense due to an adverse court ruling in India and forex losses due to a devalued Nigerian naira.
“The flow through of tariff repair is in-line with our expectation on ARPU increase and SIM consolidation. We reported industry leading ARPU,” Gopal Vittal, managing director, said in the filing, without commenting specifically on the forex-related charges this quarter.
Vittal has been appointed as Bharti’s vice chairman while Shashwat Sharma was named as the managing director and chief executive officer, according to a company filing. Both will move into their new roles starting Jan. 1, 2026.