Bharti Airtel’s mainstay India mobile services business clocked 4% sequential growth in Ebitda to ₹18,874 crore in the September quarter (Q2FY27). The business contributed nearly 83% of its Ebitda from Indian operations, excluding Indus Towers. Growth was mainly driven by a 2.7% QoQ increase in mobile average revenue per user (Arpu) to ₹271.
But improved Arpu alone might not impress investors. That’s because Airtel has reintroduced its popular ₹299 prepaid data plan, which comes with 28 days of validity. The plan was significant as it offered a relatively low-cost entry point for users with a daily data limit of 1GB. After scrapping the plan on 12 August, Airtel’s cheapest entry-level plan was the ₹349 plan, offering 1.5GB of data per day.
But instead of matching Airtel's earlier tariff move, rival Reliance Jio chose to keep the price of its entry-level plan at ₹299. Separately, it also announced a Jio Prime scheme with a one-time cost of ₹300 for twelve months, effectively ₹25 per month, offering protection against tariff hikes for a year.
Airtel’s home broadband segment saw customer additions grow 4.7% QoQ to 15.36 million homes by the end of September. While home broadband growth prospects are upbeat, the management said during the Q2 earnings call that it was scaling back fixed wireless access (FWA)-led expansion. However, deploying fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connections could take longer, which could affect near-term growth in home broadband customer additions.
For the Indian telecom business, Airtel reports Ebit (earnings before interest and tax). Its market capitalization (net of its stake in Africa telecom, Indus Towers after applying 20% holding company discount)-to-Ebit based on annualized H1FY27 financials is around 24x, almost at 10% discount to Jio-based on same parameter.