Bharti Airtel growth accelerates as NBFC licence and data centre strategy scale

Investment View and Target Price

Geojit Investments Limited reiterates its BUY rating on Bharti Airtel and raises its target price to Rs 2,180 from Rs 2,123. The broker views Airtel’s growth outlook favourably, supported by portfolio premiumisation, customer additions in mobile and home services, greater penetration of enterprise digital services, improving free cash flow and balance-sheet deleveraging.

Geojit’s broader thesis also includes Airtel’s adjacencies, such as planned 1 GW data-centre capacity, NBFC-led financial-services expansion, sovereign-cloud offerings, fibre deployment, artificial-intelligence-led operating efficiencies, One Airtel convergence plans and renewable-energy adoption.

Q4 FY26 Financial Performance

Bharti Airtel reported consolidated revenue of Rs 55,383 crore in Q4 FY26, up 15.7 per cent year on year and 2.6 per cent quarter on quarter. EBITDA increased 16.6 per cent year on year to Rs 31,492 crore, while the EBITDA margin expanded 50 basis points year on year to 56.9 per cent, supported by revenue growth and cost discipline.

Reported profit after tax declined because of a Rs 3,161 crore charge relating to regulatory and government levies. The report does not provide a comparison of reported quarterly results against broker or consensus expectations.

India and Africa Business Performance

India revenue grew 7.7 per cent year on year to Rs 39,566 crore in Q4 FY26, led by the mobile, homes and business-to-business segments and higher realisations. India ARPU increased 4.9 per cent year on year to Rs 257 from Rs 245, driven by premiumisation and postpaid upgrades.

Africa revenue grew 40.9 per cent year on year to Rs 16,035 crore, aided by customer additions, increased data use and favourable currency translation. Airtel had approximately 666 million customers in Q4 FY26 across its 15-country Asian and African footprint.

Operating Expansion and Strategic Initiatives

Operating expansion remained broad-based across Airtel’s markets. In India, the optic-fibre network rose 8.9 per cent year on year, mobile broadband stations increased 6.1 per cent, towers grew 2.3 per cent and home-services cities increased 10.8 per cent. Population coverage reached 96.5 per cent.

In Africa, Airtel Money transaction value grew 34.3 per cent year on year, active customers rose 21.3 per cent and Airtel Money ARPU increased 5.6 per cent. Network towers, owned towers and mobile-broadband base stations grew 8.8 per cent, 14.6 per cent and 14.5 per cent respectively.

Management Commentary

• Airtel has entered into a share-swap transaction to acquire an additional 16.3 per cent stake in Airtel Africa, with the eventual objective of reaching the ownership limit allowed under UK regulations.
• Airtel is targeting 800 million total customers, comprising 500 million in India and 300 million in Africa.
• Nxtra Data Centers raised US$1 billion from marquee investors, alongside Airtel participation.
• Airtel is partnering with Google on a large artificial-intelligence data centre in Visakhapatnam under a colocation model.

Earnings Estimates

Geojit increased its FY27E revenue estimate by 3.0 per cent to Rs 2,42,619 crore and EBITDA estimate by 2.5 per cent to Rs 1,37,543 crore. However, the broker lowered adjusted PAT and EPS estimates by 1.3 per cent to Rs 40,645 crore and Rs 66.7 respectively.

Sum-of-the-Parts Valuation

Geojit’s Rs 2,180 target price is based on a sum-of-the-parts valuation using FY28E EBITDA multiples for the major businesses.

Risk and Near-Term Consideration

The report notes temporary pressure on international roaming revenue from tensions in West Asia.