Bharti Airtel Share Price

Bharti Airtel India is a telecommunication company that offers services in India, USA, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and SAARC regions. With operations in 17 countries and a customer base of over 490 million, the company is ranked amongst the top 3 mobile service providers as per subscribers globally. The company also offers fixed lines, broadband, IPTV and DTH services. It owns a vast network of passive infrastructure for telecom operations under its subsidiary – Bharti Infratel Ltd.

The company was incorporated as Bharti Tele Ventures Ltd in 1995. It was renamed to its present name in 2006 to reflect the company's brand essence objectives.

Business operations

Bharti Airtel launched mobile services during 1995-96 for the first time in Delhi and Himachal Pradesh. In 1997-98, the company became the first private entity to obtain a licence to provide basic telephone services in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The company also incorporated Bharti BT VSAT Ltd and Bharti BT Internet Ltd during the year. Expanding its presence in the domestic market, Bharti Airtel acquired JT Mobile to provide cellular services in Karnataka, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh in 1999-2000. The company took over the operations of Skycell Chennai and grew its base in the Southern Indian states.

The next year, Bharti Airtel launched IndiaOne, the country's first private-sector national and international long-distance services. The company acquired the licence to operate 8 new circles while also taking over Bharti Mobitel Ltd (previously Spice Cell Ltd), a company offering mobile services in the Kolkata circle. During 2002-03, the company began telecom services in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh (West), Maharashtra, Mumbai, Kerala, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.

A year later, the company began operations in West Bengal, Bihar, UP (East), Jammu & Kashmir through new licences providing Unified Access Services. The company entered the telecom service market of Rajasthan and North Eastern states through the acquisition of a majority stake in Bharti Hexacom Ltd.

The company also entered into an agreement with government-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd to share its long-distance network.

Expanding its global footprint, Bharti Airtel signed service agreements with mobile operators in the Philippines, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia.

In 2005, the company signed a capacity expansion contract with Ericsson to offer managed services and broaden its GSM network. GPRS network in rural areas of 15 telecom networks in India.

The global presence of Bharti Airtel got a major boost with the setting up of wholly owned subsidiaries with its name in the US, UK, Hong Kong, Canada and Sri Lanka.

The same year, the company teamed up with Microsoft to offer software and services for the small and medium business market in India.

During 2007-08, Bharti Airtel set up a joint venture with Vodafone Essaar Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd for an independent tower company -- Indus Towers Ltd for offering passive infrastructure in 16 telecom circles in India.

The next year saw the company enter the media and television space with Airtel Digital TV. They also launched their virtual calling card service Airtel CallHome in the UK, Singapore and Canada. The company entered the mobile tele services in Sri Lanka under the Airtel brand.

In 2020, Bharti Airtel entered the African market with the acquisition of Zain Group's mobile operation in over 15 countries.

In 2013, the company announced a telecom infrastructure partnership with Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited to use each other's optic fibre submarine cable network and broadband services.

Bharti Airtel announced a collaboration with China Mobile to share technical knowledge to accelerate the commercialisation of the 4.5G/5G network in 2015.

In October 2022, the company announced the launch of its 5G service in India.

As of December 26, 2023, Bharti Airtel Ltd’s market capitalisation stood at over ₹5.7 lakh crore. Airtel share price has surged over 97% in the last three years.

Financial highlights

• The company’s consolidated revenue grew 19.8% year-on-year to ₹1.39 lakh crore in FY 2022-23 compared to ₹1.16 lakh crore in FY22.

• Its net profit for FY23 stood surged to ₹8,346 crore as against ₹4,255 crore.

• The earnings per share (EPS) of the telecom giant stood at ₹14.8 in FY23.

• The EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) grew 23.4% to ₹71,733 crore in FY23 as against ₹58,110 crore in FY22.