Bharti Airtel Delivers All-Round Beat In Q2; Jefferies Increases Target Price, Reiterates ‘Buy’

Bharti Airtel has posted a strong all-round performance for the September 2025 quarter, prompting Jefferies to raise its target price on the stock to Rs 2,635 from Rs 2,500 while maintaining a ‘Buy' rating.

The telecom major reported growth across India Homes and Africa operations, a margin expansion in its India mobile business, and record free cash flow generation. Jefferies highlighted Airtel's consistent subscriber premiumisation, improving monetisation trends, and a healthy outlook for revenue and Ebitda growth.

Bharti Airtel's total revenue saw a solid 5% increase, rising from Rs 49,463 crore to Rs 52,145 crore in second quarter of FY26. This indicates continued demand and successful monetisation efforts. Net profit showed the most significant surge, jumping by 14% from Rs 5,948 crore to Rs 6,792 crore.

Bharti Airtel Q2 Highlights (Consolidated, QoQ)

• Revenue up 5% to Rs 52,145 crore versus Rs 49,463 crore.

• Ebitda up 6% to Rs 29,561 crore versus Rs 27,839 crore.

• Margin flat at 56.7% versus 56.3%.

• Net profit up 14% to Rs 6,792 crore versus Rs 5,948 crore

“Subscriber premiumisation and improving monetisation trends continue to support a healthy growth outlook for Bharti, We raise FY26-28 estimates by 1-4% and reiterate ‘Buy' with rolled over price target  of Rs2,635, given strong growth outlook and rising ROCE.”

The brokerage further added that, Bharti's annualised mobile revenues in 2QFY26 were up 6% versus the same in 4QFY25, offering comfort on high-single digit to low double-digit growth even without tariff hikes.

“India mobile margins were up 90bps QoQ to 60.3% and implied 94% incremental margins - a positive surprise,” Jefferies said.

“We cut our India mobile revenue estimates as we defer tariff hikes by a quarter but maintain Ebitda estimates to factor 20 beat and expect 17% Cagr in India mobile Ebitda over FY26-28,” it further added.