Indian telco Bharti Airtel is not merely a significant participant in worldwide telecom—it is now the world’s second largest worldwide telco group by way of cell subscriptions, behind undisputed prime canine China Cell.
Launching its first home cell companies in India in 1995, Bharti Airtel has constructed up a portfolio of companies overlaying 17 nations in Asia and Africa. This is a take a look at how Bharti Airtel grew to a global telecom behemoth, powered by knowledge you will discover in TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database.
A present snapshot of Bharti Airtel
On the finish of 2025, the Airtel group had 601.1 million cell subscriptions throughout its 15 consolidated operations, plus an additional 76.7 million by way of joint ventures in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, to offer it a complete of 677.8 million cell subscriptions group-wide (notice that figures reported by Airtel and people utilized in GlobalComms Database don’t all the time match because of various accounting strategies utilized by the father or mother group, its native subsidiaries and nationwide regulators).
Bharti Airtel recorded consolidated whole income of INR1.75 trillion ($20 billion) within the yr to end-March 2025, a rise from INR1.50 trillion a yr earlier. EBITDA improved from INR790.5 billion to INR984.2 billion over the identical interval, while internet revenue reached INR335.3 billion, in comparison with INR74.5 billion within the yr to March 31, 2024.
Bharti Airtel’s two fundamental shareholders are Singtel of Singapore, with a stake of round 27.5% at end-2025, and Bharti Enterprises, with a direct and oblique holding of roughly 21.4%.
Bharti Enterprises was based in 1976 by its present chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal. It is a significant Indian conglomerate, with enterprise pursuits spanning industries together with telecoms, expertise, insurance coverage, actual property and hospitality.
Home enterprise
Bharti Enterprises established a presence in India’s telecoms markets within the mid-Nineties by means of a sequence of subsidiaries and joint ventures – together with tie-ups with BT, Telecom Italia and SFR – beginning with Bharti Mobile, which was awarded a GSM license in 1992 and launched in Delhi three years later.
Over the next decade it solidified its place by buying further licenses and thru a number of acquisitions, within the course of firming up its ‘Airtel’ model id.
In March 2006, nationwide GSM operator Bharti Mobile and regional licensees Bharti Cell, Bharti Mobitel, Bharti Mobinet, Bharti Telenet and Hexacom have been merged into Bharti Airtel.
Airtel now gives retail cell voice and knowledge, mounted broadband and voice, and pay-TV companies all through India, in addition to a variety of company and business-oriented connectivity and ICT options.
Airtel India had 396.4 million cell, 13.1 million mounted broadband and 10.1 million mounted voice subscriptions on the finish of 2025. It sits in second place in all these markets, behind its fundamental home competitor, Reliance Jio.
Asian joint ventures
The group went on to increase to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh within the 2000s, and each these companies at the moment are operated in partnership with Axiata of Malaysia.
Airtel acquired a 70% stake in Warid Telecom in Bangladesh in 2010 for $300 million, rebranding it as Airtel Bangladesh in December that yr. Airtel took 100% management in 2013. In 2016, the operator was merged into Robi Axiata, and Airtel now has a 28.2% stake within the enlarged enterprise, with Axiata holding the rest.
Its Sri Lankan division, in the meantime, was established in 2007 when the group paid $4 million for a mixed 2G/3G license. Its business launch came about in January 2009. Airtel Lanka merged with one other Axiata subsidiary, Dialog, in June 2024 by means of a deal that granted Airtel a ten.4% stake within the enlarged firm. Dialog Axiata controls round 66% of Sri Lanka’s cell market.
Airtel Africa
Airtel acquired a swathe of latest items in 2010 when it took over the cell operations of Zain Group in 15 African nations for a complete of $10.7 billion. The footprint has modified barely since then, with two extra markets added (Seychelles and Rwanda) and exits from three nations (Burkina Faso, Ghana and Sierra Leone).
Airtel’s Operations
| Nation | Operator | Cell subs | Efficient possession |
| (Dec 2025) | (direct and oblique) | ||
| India | Bharti Airtel | 396,431,970 | 100.0% |
| Nigeria | Airtel Nigeria | 60,893,280 | 56.1% |
| Bangladesh | Robi Axiata | 57,400,000 | 28.2% |
| Kenya | Airtel Kenya | 24,500,000 | 56.1% |
| Tanzania | Airtel Tanzania | 22,945,425 | 28.6% |
| Congo, Dem. Rep. | Airtel DRC | 22,000,000 | 55.3% |
| Sri Lanka | Dialog Axiata | 19,332,000 | 10.4% |
| Uganda | Airtel Uganda | 19,200,000 | 50.0% |
| Zambia | Airtel Zambia | 12,650,000 | 50.5% |
| Madagascar | Airtel Madagascar | 9,034,200 | 56.1% |
| Malawi | Airtel Malawi | 8,625,000 | 44.9% |
| Niger | Airtel Niger | 8,500,000 | 50.5% |
| Chad | Airtel Chad | 7,875,000 | 56.1% |
| Rwanda | Airtel Rwanda | 4,700,000 | 56.1% |
| Congo, Rep. | Airtel Congo | 2,035,000 | 50.5% |
| Gabon | Airtel Gabon | 1,622,336 | 56.1% |
| Seychelles | Airtel Seychelles | 86,223 | 56.1% |
The African operations are managed by holding firm Airtel Africa, which is 62.4% owned by Bharti Airtel.
The group includes Airtel’s cell divisions in 14 nations, divided into three groupings:
- Nigeria
- East Africa: Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi and Rwanda
- Francophone Africa: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Niger, Chad and Seychelles.
In December 2025, Airtel Africa signed an settlement with US-based SpaceX to introduce direct-to-cell (D2C) companies offered by the latter’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite tv for pc agency Starlink throughout all 14 of its markets. The D2C service is about to be made accessible in 2026, initially restricted to textual content messaging and knowledge for chosen functions.
Airtel Africa served a mixed whole of 204.7 million subscriptions throughout its 14 markets on the finish of 2025, up from 184.3 million at December 31, 2024. The largest single operation is Airtel Nigeria, with 60.9 million subscriptions at end-2025.
In its most up-to-date full-year financials, for the yr to end-March 2025, Airtel Africa recorded a internet revenue attributable to shareholders of $220 million, reversing a internet lack of $165 million the earlier yr. The group has been negatively impacted by extreme foreign money devaluations in Nigeria, Malawi and Zambia. In reported foreign money, whole income for FY 2024/25 decreased by 0.5% to $4.96 billion, while in fixed foreign money the corporate reported a 21.1% uptick. Equally, underlying EBITDA totalled $2.30 billion in 2024/25, representing a 5.1% year-on-year lower in reported foreign money however development of 18.1% in fixed foreign money.
Knowledge on cell markets, mounted broadband, mounted voice markets, and extra
At TeleGeography, we are the telecom knowledge individuals— 
the consultants from whom trade leaders get their knowledge. You may get extra evaluation like this (and the info behind it) with a subscription to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database.
And with this subscription, you additionally get every day CommsUpdate emails: a curated telecom information service produced by our crew.
