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Informist, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026

 

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--Bharti Airtel: International roaming emerging as a strong focus area
--CONTEXT: Comments by Bharti Airtel's mgmt in post-earnings analyst concall
--Bharti Airtel: See growth opportunities in core connectivity, data centres
--Bharti Airtel: Committed to stepping up investments in data centres
--Bharti Airtel: Yet to hear from DoT on request tied to AGR dues
--Bharti Airtel: Currency volatility only risk in Africa business
--Bharti Airtel: B2B not on cards for Bharti Hexacom's capex strategy

 

By Shakshi Jain and Arya S. Biju

 

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI – With growing free cash flows and low financial leverage, telecommunications major Bharti Airtel Ltd. appears to have a welcome problem on its hands--to zero down on increasing avenues of capital expenditure. "I think it's a good problem to have," Bharti Airtel Executive Vice-Chairman Gopal Vittal told analysts in a post-earnings conference call Friday. "There are three ports of call right now. One is data centres, the second is cloud, and the third is opportunities in financial services." This is besides the core connectivity business, which will continue to receive its fair share of capital expenditure allocation, according to the management.

 

"Airtel is now one of the lowest leveraged telcos globally within the industry... if you take the external net debt without the financial aid obligations and without the DoT (Department of Telecommunications) debt... the external net debt is almost down to nothing," Vittal said. The company reported its December quarter earnings Thursday.

 

Bharti Airtel is committed to stepping up investments in data centres to reach a capacity of 1 gigawatt over the next 3-4 years, up from 120-130 megawatts currently. This is expected to increase the company's market share to 25% from about 12% currently, as per the management. During the December quarter, Bharti Airtel entered into a strategic partnership with Google to set up India's first artificial intelligence hub in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

 

Bharti Airtel also plans to continue to allocate capital towards its Africa business, which the company believes has been "an excellent investment". It sees significant synergistic opportunities between its India and Africa businesses, including portfolio premiumisation and accelerating the digital business growth. "...currency volatility is the only risk in Africa. But that continent presents tremendous opportunity... because it's got a young population, penetration is low, pricing structure is good, and industry structure is sorted," the management said.

 

Among other areas of interest, the management said international roaming is emerging as a focus area where the company sees a large growth opportunity. In the core connectivity business, the company believes it is growing ahead of the 5-6% rate that the industry is clocking. "...the digital side of the portfolio, which is really our cloud, cyber security, our IoT (Internet of Things) businesses, which are now growing at about 30%, but need to accelerate further because that market is very large and we have small shares in it," the management said.

 

Answering a query on subsidiary Bharti Hexacom Ltd.'s capital expenditure plan, the management said the company has a strong balance sheet and will not shy away from investing where required for growth. It, however, ruled out the business-to-business space as the bulk of the market is restricted to the top-500 companies which do not have their head offices in either Rajasthan or the north-eastern states where the subsidiary is present.

 

As of Dec. 31, Bharti Airtel's consolidated net debt stood at INR 1.83 trillion, down from INR 1.95 trillion at the end of the September quarter. The company generated a consolidated free cash flow of INR 159.18 billion during the December quarter, slightly more than the INR 152.38 billion generated in the trailing quarter. Meanwhile, its consolidated capital expenditure during the quarter rose slightly to INR 117.87 billion from INR 113.62 billion in the previous quarter.

 

The company has so far not heard from the Department of Telecommunications on its request to be treated on a par with peer Vodafone Idea Ltd. in relation to reassessment of its adjusted gross revenue dues. "We have asked for a treatment of parity and there are many areas which warrant this parity," Vittal said. "One of these areas, for example, is just sort of computation errors, arithmetical errors, errors of commission, errors of omission... we are waiting to hear from them (DoT) and then we will decide what we do."

 

Friday, shares of Bharti Airtel ended 2.3% higher at INR 2,038.40 on the National Stock Exchange.  End

 

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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