Profit before exceptional items and tax was at Rs 9,346.3 crore in Q3 FY25, registering growth of 120.50% from Rs 4,238.6 crore recorded in Q3 FY24. The company reported an exceptional loss of Rs 7,545.6 crore during the quarter.

EBITDA for Q3 FY25 increased by 24.1% to Rs 24,880 crore, compared to Rs 20,044 crore reported in Q3 FY24. The EBITDA margin also improved, rising to 55.1% in Q3 FY25 from 52.9% in Q3 FY24.

The company's total capital expenditure (capex) for Q3 FY25 was Rs 9,160.8 crore, registering a decline of 22.57% compared to Rs 11,832.6 crore posted in the same quarter last year.

During the quarter, EBITDAaL stood at Rs 21,474 crore, up 26.1% YoY, EBITDAaL margin was at 47.6%. EBITDAaL treats the lease obligations as part of committed expenses which reflects a more real position of both profitability and leverage.

The telecom major’s consolidated mobile data traffic for the quarter was at 20,689 PBs, registering YoY growth of 24.2%.

During the quarter, overall customer base stood at approximately 577 million across 15 countries.

India's revenues for Q3 FY25 stood at Rs 34,654 crore, marking a 24.6% YoY increase. Mobile revenues grew by 21.4% YoY, driven by the residual impact of tariff flow thru and the company's consistent focus to premiumize the portfolio with quality customers.

Average revenue per user (ARPU) for the quarter stood at Rs 245, up 17.78% as compared to Rs 208 in Q3 FY24.

The telecom operator said that it strengthened its leadership position in the postpaid segment with sustained momentum in net adds of 0.6 million in Q3 FY25 there by reaching a customer base of 25.3 million. Its market share in smartphone segment saw continued improvement with addition of 25.2 million, an increase of 10.3% YoY.

The telecom operator continued to garner market share of 4G/5G customers and added 28.6 Mn 4G/5G data customers to the company's network over last year, an increase of 12.8% YoY. We continue to deliver industry-leading ARPU growth along with growing average data usage per data customer.

Airtel Business delivered revenue growth of 8.7% YoY despite of headwinds in the global segment primarily arising out of pressures on wholesale data and messaging. Domestic business saw healthy growth with emerging digital offerings seeing strong traction. During the quarter, the company has partnered with Z-scaler to launch Airtel Secure Digital Internet

Airtel’s Homes business sustained its growth momentum with a revenue growth of 18.7% YoY, driven by strong customer additions. During the quarter, the company has accelerated its FWA expansion, which led to a strong uptick in customer additions of 674k customers to reach to a total base of 9.2 million. The firm has continued to expand home-pass network at accelerated pace of over 1.8 million home passes in the quarter.

The telecom major rolled out approximately 5,200 towers and 16,300 mobile broadband stations during the quarter to expand its network footprint and enhance the customer experience across the country. The company’s commitment to delivering an exceptional network experience is reflected in its investments, having added around 27,100 towers YoY and deployed approximately 47,100 kilometers of fiber.

Digital TV posts revenue of Rs 761 crore with a customer base of 15.8 million. The company continue to gain customer market share with simplified pricing structure, a market-specific strategy, and differentiated converged offerings. During the quarter, the firm has partnered with Glance and launched a platform allowing customers to experience Glance TV through Airtel Xstream devices powered by Android TV OS.

Net Debt-EBITDA ratio (annualized) stands at 2.26 times (on comparable basis) as compared to 2.50 times as on September 30, 2024.

Meanwhile, Africa revenues for the quarter stood at $1,334 million in constant currency, registering a 21.3% growth compared to $1,099 million in the corresponding quarter last year, driven by growth across all regions, including Nigeria, East Africa, and Francophone. EBITDA margin (in constant currency) was 47.1%, down by 1.1 Bps YoY, while EBIT margin (in constant currency) was 29.4%, a decrease of 2.8 Bps YoY. The customer base reached 163.1 million and capex for the quarter amounted to Rs 1,181 crore.

Gopal Vittal, vice chairman and MD, Bharti Airtel, said, “We delivered another consistent quarter with consolidated revenue of 45,129 crores. Indus Towers consolidation is effective this quarter. India revenue (excluding Indus) grew by 4.8% sequentially. Africa maintained strong constant currency sequential growth trajectory of 5.6%. India mobile delivered strong performance led by residual flow-through of tariff repair and underlying levers of premiumization. We reported another quarter of industry-leading ARPU growth to reach Rs 245.

We added 6.5 million smartphone users underpinned by our focus on acquiring quality customers and portfolio premiumization. Homes business saw further step up in customer additions with acceleration of FWA expansion. Airtel Business delivered stable performance but continues to remain challenged. We are in the middle of comprehensive re-tooling of our Airtel Business portfolio by stepping-up investments in digital services across Cloud, Security and IoT while shedding very low margin commodity voice and wholesale business. This is likely to impact the top line of this business in the coming quarters but will have an insignificant impact on the margins.

Our balance sheet remains solid, supported by robust cash generation, prudent capital allocation and continued deleveraging. During the quarter, we prepaid another tranche of Rs 3,626 crore of high-cost spectrum dues. At the same time, we believe the industry needs further tariff repair to ensure sustained investments and long term value creation.”

Bharti Airtel is a global communications solutions provider with over 550 million customers in 15 countries across South Asia and Africa.

The scrip slipped 2.47% to settle at Rs 1,619.55 on the BSE.