Bharti Airtel’s India capital expenditure shot up to ₹12,553 crore in the quarter ending on March 31, compared to the previous three quarters in FY25, largely owing to higher spends across mobile, enterprise and passive infrastructure segments. According to Gopal Vittal, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Airtel, this number will decline in the next fiscal year as the company downsizes investment in certain services.
Many analysts noted with “surprise” the elevated capex across Airtel’s Enterprises. JP Morgan estimated the growth to be 2.7 times quarter-over-quarter (q-o-q) and said the same could set the tone for FY26 if sustained.
“India wireless/overall capex increased a sharp 39 per cent/52 per cent q-o-q to ₹60 billion/₹104 billion and came significantly ahead of our estimates. Tower/BTS adds were up just 1 per cent q-o-q, suggesting the accelerating capex was on transport/core in wireless. Elsewhere, Enterprise drove sharp capex, perhaps from undersea cables and data centres, in addition to accelerating net adds in homes,” said JP Morgan in its report. On the other hand, Citi described the spike as a possible “year-end effect” and awaited clarity.
Responding to queries about the capex during the company’s earnings call, Vittal attributed the increase to investment in data centres.
“Next year, the capex will be lower because rural rollout will substantially slowdown. Capex is focused on doing right things for company. Transport will continue to get a fair share from capex, radio will certainly come down and radio is a large component of capex,” he said.
Goldman Sachs agreed with the forecast of declining trend, stating, “Capex tends to be lumpy, and we continue to expect Bharti’s capex intensity to decline. For the full year FY25, Bharti’s India capex was down 9 per cent y-o-y, and we expect flat capex in FY26; this would translate into 20 per cent capex to sales in FY26E (was 24 per cent in FY25), further declining to 17 per cent/16 per cent in FY27/FY28E.”
Published on May 15, 2025
