Bharti Airtel Limited was named by PL Capital among its large-cap high-conviction picks with a projected upside of 31.1% based on the brokerage's target price and 9 October closing level.

Bharti Airtel is expanding its digital infrastructure by scaling data centre capacity from about 300 megawatts to 1 gigawatt with facilities in southern India, near Mumbai and around Delhi, and by building a sovereign cloud for Indian enterprises, government agencies and defence forces. Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal also identified financial services as a new growth area in India, with consumer loans, alongside its Airtel Money business across 14 African countries.

Bharti Airtel's backed satellite venture is awaiting final clearances to begin services in India as the communications ministry conducts security assessments of Starlink and rival domestic ventures and rejected claims of an unfair approval process.

Bharti Airtel Limited led India's IPTV segment with 4.09 million subscribers of 6.21 million reported to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India as of June 30, 2026, while its DTH arm Bharti Telemedia ranked second among paid DTH operators with 13.58 million subscribers and a 27.97% share.

Motilal Oswal Wealth Management Research Desk is positive on Bharti Airtel with a target price of Rs 2,250, expecting the company to benefit from a potential 15% tariff hike from 3QFY27, premiumisation, strong free cash flow and deleveraging, while the proposed Jio Platforms IPO at around Rs 11 trillion provides a valuation benchmark for its India wireless business with limited allocation impact due to small free float.

Bharti Group, reported as Bharti Airtel Limited for identity resolution, recorded adjusted gross revenue of Rs 29,803 crore in the June 2026 quarter, up 10.19% year-on-year, with a 40.03% share of access services revenue, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

Nomura has retained Bharti Airtel Limited as its top pick in telecom, arguing its 12-15 percent FY28F EV/Ebitda discount to Jio Platforms Limited is unjustified and should narrow after Jio's listing. Nomura cited Airtel's premium subscriber mix, stronger ARPU growth and 2 percent subscriber addition after the July 2024 tariff hike versus Jio's subscriber loss.

Bharti Airtel, through its enterprise unit Airtel Business, said CEO Sharat Sinha supports the Indian government's planned consultation paper on AI regulation covering AI safety, deepfakes and a human-first approach. Sinha said adequate guardrails and enterprise architecture for safe AI deployment can unlock strong productivity gains and drive demand for cloud, data centres, connectivity and cybersecurity. He said Airtel expects cloud, cybersecurity, Internet of Things, next-generation connectivity and communications-platform-as-a-service to drive growth over the next three years, with cybersecurity growing rapidly and frauds on Airtel's telecom networks dramatically decreasing after its spam prevention and fraud prevention solutions.

Bharti Airtel-backed Airtel Money listed on the London Stock Exchange on October 9, selling 270 million existing shares to raise about 529 million pounds at a valuation of around $7 billion, while Airtel Africa retained its 77.85% stake. The fintech business reported FY2026 revenue of $1.355 billion and underlying EBITDA of $689 million with 54.1 million customers.

Bharti Airtel Limited Managing Director and CEO Shashwat Sharma said the time was right to look at tariff hikes now that all three telecom players have become competitive, adding that pricing should move so higher-usage customers pay more.

Bharti Airtel Limited, through Director for Corporate Affairs and Group Chief Regulatory Officer Rahul Vatts, said satellite operators intending to use spectrum currently used by mobile players for direct-to-device services should face the same pricing, licensing, security and auction conditions as telecom operators.

Bharti Airtel Limited, through its enterprise arm Airtel Business, plans to expand data centre capacity to around 1 gigawatt by 2030, with CEO Sharat Sinha citing demand from hyperscalers, domestic enterprises, government and small businesses for AI training, inference and GPU-as-a-service, alongside fibre, subsea and cloud infrastructure and faster growth in cloud, cybersecurity and IoT.

Bharti Airtel Limited is showcasing network intelligence, sovereign cloud, AI-based security operations and AI-led data centre energy management at India Mobile Congress 2026. Ahead of the event, Airtel Business launched IQ Gateway, which unifies SMS, WhatsApp, RCS and business voice on a single control plane and uses network-level data for delivery reporting, authentication and fraud protection, including SIM-based Silent Authentication to replace OTPs in supported flows.

Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said Bharti Group-backed Eutelsat OneWeb is still awaiting spectrum and security clearance from the Indian government to start satellite communication services, rejecting Elon Musk's allegation that Starlink is being blocked in India to protect incumbents.