Airtel's anti-fraud offensive leads to 68.7% drop in value of financial losses

The data analysed by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) - Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) compares key cybercrime indicators from September 2024 (a period before the launch of Airtel's Fraud and spam detection solution) with those from June 2025.

"Bharti Airtel today announced that its anti-fraud initiatives have resulted in a significant decline in cybercrime complaints, and that this has been further endorsed by recent information from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) - Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)," the Sunil Bharti-led telecom company said in a release.

According to the MHA-I4C, there has been a 68.7% decline in the value of financial losses and a 14.3% drop in overall cybercrime incidents on the Airtel network, the telco's release said, emphasising the efficacy of the company's fraud detection solution in curbing cybercrime.

Gopal Vittal, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Bharti Airtel, informed that in the past one year, the company's AI-powered network solutions have identified over 48.3 billion spam calls and blocked 3.2 lakh fraudulent links.

"However, we see this as small steps in a much larger fight. We will continue to innovate and invest heavily in this area until our networks are free of digital spam and scams," Vittal said.

Meanwhile, shares of Bharti Airtel were trading 1.31% higher at ₹1,929.40 apiece on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) at 1:24 PM. The counter opened the day at ₹1,450, up from the previous close of ₹1,443.35.

The scrip has rose 1.9% in the last week. On the other hand, the shares of Bharti Airtel have advanced 2.9% in the last month. On a three monthly basis, the scrip rose 3.6%. The stock zoomed 18.2% in the last six months.

Bharti Airtel shares touched its 52 week high of ₹1,557.60 on July 3, 2025 and touched its 52 week low of ₹1,095.85 on August 8, 2024. The company’s market capitalisation currently stands at ₹57,627.06 crore.

On August 20, the company announced that it will discontinue its ₹249 prepaid plan offering 1 GB of daily data. The change, effective immediately, raises the minimum data usage threshold to 1.5 GB per day, now priced at ₹319, ET reported.

The step mirrors Reliance Jio’s recent move to withdraw its 1 GB per day plan, replacing it with a 1.5 GB daily pack at ₹299, nearly 17% costlier. Analysts expect Vodafone Idea, India’s third-largest telecom operator, to adopt a similar strategy.

The move, according to experts, is intended to enhance average revenue per user (ARPU) for telecom operators.

Bharti Airtel Q1 results:

Bharti Airtel reported net profit of ₹5,948 crore in the first quarter of the current financial year (Q1FY26), marking an increase of 43% from ₹4,160 crore in the same period last year. The sharp jump in profit came on the back of strong performance in India and a rebound in African business.

Bharti Airtel's revenue from operations jumped 29% annually in the April-June period to ₹49,463 crore from ₹38,506 crore in the year-ago period.

The company reported strong operational performance as its operating profit, also known as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), came in at ₹28,167 crore with an EBITDA margin of 56.9%.