Bharti Airtel’s sales and marketing expenses up 4.5% to Rs 2,882.4 crore in Q2 FY2025

New Delhi: Bharti Airtel reported an 8.5% increase in sales and promotion expenses, reaching Rs 2,882.4 crore for the quarter ending September 30, 2024, up from Rs 2,656.8 crore in the same quarter last year.  

The company spent Rs 2715.7 crore on sales and marketing in Q1 FY2025. 

In the first half of the current fiscal year, Bharti Airtel's sales and marketing expenses increased by 4.5%, reaching Rs 5,598.1 crore compared to Rs 5,356.0 crore in the same period last year.

In FY2024, the company allocated Rs 10,788.2 crore to sales and marketing.  

Bharti Airtel reported a 168% year-on-year rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 3,593 crore for the September quarter against Rs 1,341 crore a year ago.

India's second-largest telecom company clocked quarterly revenues of Rs 41,473 crore, 12% higher than the year-ago period, aided by strong momentum in India and growth in Africa.

Bharti Airtel announced that Gopal Vittal – who has helmed the company as Managing Director and CEO for the last twelve years -- will move to the role of Executive Vice Chairman on January 1, 2026.

Shashwat Sharma, currently Chief Operation Officer, will be appointed MD and CEO of Bharti Airtel on January 1, 2026. In preparation for this role, he is being appointed CEO designate of the company.

As CEO designate, Sharma will be responsible for the entire end-to-end consumer business.

On the Q2 scorecard, Vittal said: "We delivered another quarter of solid performance, with India revenue growing 8.7% sequentially. Africa maintained strong revenue growth momentum as well with 7.7% constant currency growth. The flow through tariff repair is in line with our expectations of ARPU increase and SIM consolidation. We reported an industry-leading ARPU of Rs 233."

Focus on winning quality customers and driving premiumisation helped Sunil Mittal-led telco add 4.2 million smartphone customers.

"...we believe that industry needs further tariff repair for sustained investments given that ROCE for India is still only 11%," Vittal added.

India's business posted quarterly revenues of Rs 31,561 crore, up 16.9% year-on-year and up 8.7 sequentially, backed by improved realisations in the mobile segment and sustained momentum in Homes and Airtel Business.

Mobile services India revenues increased by 18.5%, led by tariff repair, strong smartphone data customer additions and underlying mix improvement.

Airtel Business revenues rose 10.7% on the back of the growth in the domestic portfolio.

In a separate BSE filing, on the top-level changes, Airtel said Rakesh Bharti Mittal, having served Airtel for 9 years in his current term, will move on to the boards of Indus Towers and Bharti Hexacom.

"Rajan Bharti Mittal returns to Airtel to be the Bharti Board nominee with immediate effect," it said.