Chairman's Message
Leading with
Customers at the Core
Dear Shareholders,
FY 2025-26 has been a rewarding year for your Company, reaffirming our long-held conviction that results follow naturally when we build the best networks, listen to our customers, and relentlessly execute our strategy.
Central to these core tenets has been our endeavour to extend a reliable and robust network, built on the foundation of uncompromising safety for all our customers. Your Company has strengthened its network capabilities with a focus on reliability and resilience, whether that be through scaling our network footprint or by leveraging AI-powered anti-spam solution. We have continually raised the bar for what a telecom Company can do. These efforts continue to define our journey as a trusted provider of digital connectivity.
As data consumption accelerates and digital services become increasingly integral to economic activity, your Company’s role has expanded beyond connecting the people of Rajasthan and the North-East to the world. Today, we are enabling digital inclusion, strengthening economic participation and helping build a safer and an even more digitally empowered future for the communities we serve.
Connecting India’s growth frontiers
In the past year, the Indian economy demonstrated remarkable resilience and remains among the fastest-growing major economies globally. Despite global headwinds arising from tariff-related disruptions, trade policy uncertainty and geopolitical tensions in West Asia, India’s growth has been anchored in robust domestic consumption. A reform-oriented policy environment has reinforced India’s sustainable growth trajectory. At the same time, rapid improvements in connectivity, coupled with sustained enhancements in the country’s digital public infrastructure, have emerged as critical pillars of a more connected and digitally-enabled economy. The regulatory environment remains constructive, supporting long-term investments and innovation. Our regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has continued to provide a stable and enabling policy framework while remaining consistently responsive to industry concerns.
The Rajasthan and North-East circles, where your Company operates, continue to deliver strong growth supported by meaningful headroom for mobile penetration and a significant growth opportunity in home broadband. In both regions, Government investment in digital infrastructure and connectivity is creating the necessary foundation for long-term economic growth. Rajasthan’s Vision 2047 development ambitions are accelerating digital adoption and generating demand for high-quality connectivity. In the North-East, the region’s role as India’s gateway to ASEAN under the Government’s Act East Policy makes high-speed, reliable digital infrastructure, a strategic asset. This policy highlights the growing importance of high-speed and reliable digital infrastructure as a strategic asset. Together, these developments are strengthening the role of connectivity as a critical enabler of economic participation and sustainable growth.
These progressive developments, alongside a growing tourism industry, have created a strong foundation for sustained growth in the telecom sector. As economic activity expands and digital adoption accelerates across both regions, your Company is well positioned to support this next phase of growth through reliable connectivity, digital services and investment in network infrastructure.
Building a digital network
Bharti Hexacom invested decisively during the year to strengthen the digital infrastructure underpinning growth across Rajasthan and the North-East. Over the last five years, your Company invested ₹98 billion towards building its digital network. During FY 2025-26, we deployed 245 towers and 3,657 base stations to strengthen our footprint and improve coverage quality, alongside investments in 5G networks. Through our Rural Acceleration Programme, we rolled out nearly 2,900 sites over the last three years, thereby unlocking access to digital commerce and payments for previously underserved communities.
Over the last five years, your Company invested ₹98 billion towards building its digital network.
Your Company also accelerated the roll-out of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), further expanding our 5G-powered home broadband offering at scale. With domestic broadband penetration still at a nascent stage across the circles we operate, FWA is enabling us to address a significant untapped opportunity while expanding access to reliable, high-speed connectivity.
Further, I am delighted to share that our 5G network is now fully standalone (SA) ready. This strategic milestone distinguishes the company as the first domestic operator to provide a dual-mode 5G network, concurrently supporting both Standalone (SA) and Non-Standalone (NSA) configurations providing a future-ready foundation for advanced network slicing and low latency applications. Our FWA offering already operates on a SA network aimed to deliver brilliant customer experience.
Artificial Intelligence is becoming an increasingly important capability across our operations, from simplifying our network operations to intelligent capacity planning, smart site deployment, energy optimisation and predictive field engineering support. AI is helping us simplify complexity, improve efficiency and enhance the quality of service delivered to our customers.
Performance rooted in customer-centricity
During FY 2025-26, your Company delivered strong performance driven by sustained investments, sharp execution and operational excellence. Bharti Hexacom fortified its leadership position in the North-East and sustained positive momentum in Rajasthan, resulting in our life-time high revenue market share across the two circles. This reflects the consistent progress we have made over the past five years, during which our revenue market share improved by 925 basis points to reach 46%.
I am pleased to share that mobile customer base expanded to 28.8 million, with ~645K net additions during the year. In addition, smartphone data customers grew to 22.7 million and now account for 79% of our mobile base. Our Wi-Fi customer base witnessed robust net additions of ~395K supported by a deeper fiber footprint, the expansion of FWA to newer pin codes and launch of IPTV.
The strong growth in our customer base and continued focus on portfolio premiumisation translated into robust financial performance. Revenues increased by 9.4% to ₹93,538 million in FY 2025-26, driven by healthy customer additions across segments and improved quality of acquisitions. Mobile ARPU increased by 4.5% to ₹252, accompanied by a 28% increase in data consumption.
EBITDAaL stood at ₹44,563 million registering a growth of 17.9%. EBITDAaL margins improved by 343 basis points to 47.6%. Capex for the year stood at ₹15,210 million, reflecting strong operational discipline and calibrated spending. These strategic investments resulted in an all-time high operating free cash flow of ₹29,353 million while maintaining a prudent net debt to EBITDAaL of 0.5 times.
Backed by your Company’s consistent performance and strong cash generation, the Board recommended a dividend of ₹18 per share, representing an 80% year-on-year increase, in line with its philosophy of progressively enhancing returns to shareholders.
Customer obsession anchored in safety and experience
At Bharti Hexacom, our customers are at the centre of everything we do. Every investment we make, whether in strengthening our network, leveraging digital capabilities from our parent Bharti Airtel or enhancing the value and convenience of our offerings, is guided by a singular objective: delivering customer delight.
The continued growth in our customer base and continued focus on portfolio premiumisation translated into robust financial performance.
This approach is deeply rooted in our culture, reinforced by a strong sense of ownership and entrepreneurial agility. It is reflected in our focus on differentiated offerings, simplified customer journeys across channels and our digital-first engagement. Whether through compelling content partnerships, customer-centric international roaming plans or frictionless service experiences, we remain committed to creating greater value for our customers at every touchpoint.
During the year, your Company also launched IPTV services to accelerate its convergence play. Our IPTV offering blends linear TV channels with on-demand content from leading streaming apps backed by our high-speed Wi-Fi network. We are seeing strong customer adoption and improving bundle attach rates, validating the growing demand for integrated connectivity and entertainment offerings.
Our AI powered anti-spam solution, launched in September 2024, has been a game changer, having provided substantial relief from unwanted communications to our customers. During the year, your Company strengthened this solution with new features, including detection and blocking of malicious websites, prevention of One Time Password related bank frauds and spam alerts across multiple vernacular languages, ensuring ubiquitous access to such protection across our customer base.
Since its launch, this tool has flagged over 5.1 billion spam calls, identified more than 350 million spam messages and blocked over 1.1 million fraudulent links.
Connected to a better future
The opportunity before us is significant. As data consumption rises, digital adoption deepens and technologies such as 5G and AI unlock new possibilities, the role of digital infrastructure will become even more critical. Bharti Hexacom will invest decisively in strengthening its networks and capabilities, maintaining a disciplined focus on execution and long-term value creation
As data consumption rises, digital adoption deepens and technologies such as 5G and AI unlock new possibilities, the role of digital infrastructure will become even more critical
As a conscious corporate citizen, Environmental, Social and Governance principles are integral to how your Company operates and scales its business. We are working to green our network and reduce emissions through diesel use optimisation and the deployment of solar access across our sites.
In addition, your Company contributes to broader social development through initiatives that advance digital inclusion and expand access to quality education. Through the work of Bharti Airtel Foundation, we remain committed to creating meaningful and lasting impact within the communities we serve. Equally important are our employees, whose safety and well-being are paramount to us. We are investing in future-ready skilling and digitally-enabled safety practices to empower our people and foster a culture of excellence.
As Rajasthan and the North-East advance in their journey of digital transformation, Bharti Hexacom is well-positioned to play a critical role in enabling the next phase of growth and sustained innovation. Backed by strong fundamentals, disciplined capital allocation and a clear long-term vision, your Company is focused on creating enduring value for customers, communities and shareholders alike.
I thank our Board for their wise counsel, our management team and employees for their relentless commitment, and our customers, partners, suppliers, distributors and valued shareholders for the trust they continue to place in us.
JS Deepak
Chairman