Bharti Airtel Limited Conference Call Takeaways: ARPU drivers back, Homes sees change in strategy

Research evidence excerpt

J P M O R G A N

Asia Pacific Equity Research

06 August 2026

Bharti Airtel Limited

Conference Call Takeaways: ARPU drivers back,

Homes sees change in strategy

We see four main takeaways from the 1Q27 earnings call: 1) ARPU growth was

helped by improvement in International roaming (IR) as well continued

momentum in feature phone to smartphone upgrades ; 2) In Homes, the soft subs

adds was due to a conscious call to focus on quality subs and the new strategy is

now to tighten the quality of customer acquisition, focus on reducing churn, and

focus on deploying fiber where possible while deploying FWA only in places

where economics and customer quality are compelling; this has started showing

success over the last few weeks and months; 3) In data centers, it is making steady

progress to reach 1GW capacity and is in the process of acquiring more land in the

right locations; in financial services, it has gone live with lending services while

Airtel Payments bank continues to scale up; in cloud it is stepping up investments

across talent, go to market capabilities and right client solutions; 4) Large part of

the capex will continue to go in transport around fiberization and Homes. We

increase consol revenues by 1% mainly driven by better ARPU in India wireless,

however cut margins by 40-50bps due to lower margins in the Homes business over

FY27-29E. We believe growth in adjacencies, deleveraging and rising dividends

should be the key catalysts for the stock outside of better-than-expected 5G

premiumization and tariff hikes. Remain OW.

Overweight

BRTI.NS, BHARTI IN

Price (05 Aug 26):Rs1,978.00

Price Target (Mar-27):Rs2,250.00

Head of APAC Telecoms and India

TMT Research

Ankur Rudra, CFA AC

(65) 6801-3237

J.P. Morgan Securities Singapore Private Limited

Technology, Internet & Telecoms

Bhavik Mehta, CFA

(91-22) 6157-3871

J.P. Morgan India Private Limited, J.P. Morgan

Tower, Santacruz(E), Mumbai - 400098, SEBI

Registration: INH000001873, (91-22) 6157-3000.

Harshit Sharma

(91-22) 6157-5879

J.P. Morgan India Private Limited, J.P. Morgan

Tower, Santacruz(E), Mumbai - 400098, SEBI

Registration: INH000001873, (91-22) 6157-3000.

Key Changes (FYE Mar)

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