Bharti Airtel adds highest-ever postpaid users in Q1FY27, likely driven by Fast Lane: Analysts

Bharti Airtel’s postpaid subscriber additions in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027 were its highest-ever, likely supported by the launch of its 5G network slicing-based service during this period, according to brokerages.

Airtel’s postpaid subscriber base, excluding Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) connections, grew by 1 million quarter-on-quarter in Q1FY27, taking the tally to 30 million.

By comparison, it had added 814,000 postpaid subscribers in Q4FY26.

Postpaid subscribers now account for 8% of the Gurugram-headquartered telco’s total users.

“Airtel launched Postpaid Fast Lane, an innovation powered by 5G slicing technology to enhance postpaid customer experience. Airtel recorded 1 million postpaid customer additions during the quarter, which is the highest ever growth. Postpaid consumer share has reached 8% of Airtel’s India total mobile customers,” BNP Paribas said in a research note, seen by ETTelecom.

UBS also said Airtel reported record postpaid additions “likely boosted by the launch of Airtel Fast Lane for postpaid users”.

Morgan Stanley said that Airtel’s postpaid net additions were the strongest in over 13 quarters.
Goldman Sachs said that the postpaid segment accounted for 25% of net incremental subscriber additions over the last 12 months for Airtel.

Airtel launched “Priority Postpaid” in May, which was later renamed to “Fast Lane”, to offer its premium postpaid customers a differentiated experience.

The offering is based on the network slicing technology that is enabled through a 5G standalone (SA) architecture, which the telco is upgrading to from a non-standalone (NSA) architecture.

Q1FY27 performance

The Sunil Mittal-driven telco on Tuesday reported a 37.3% year-on-year rise in its profit after tax (PAT) to ₹8,167 crore in the April-June quarter of FY27, driven by strong growth in India and Africa.

Its revenue from operations during the quarter increased 18.3% to ₹58,539 crore from ₹49,462.6 crore in the June quarter a year ago.

The telco recorded 12.5% year-over-year growth in its customer base to 605 million. Its subscriber base in India grew by 12.8% to nearly 436 million.

Airtel India’s average revenue per user (ARPU) – a key performance metric – increased by 5.6% to ₹264 during the reported quarter, compared to ₹250 a year ago.

“Wireless ARPU increased by 3% quarter-on-quarter to ₹264, a function of an extra day in the quarter, strong postpaid and smartphone net adds, and c10% quarter-on-quarter increase in data usage per customer,” Goldman Sachs said in its research, adding that a tariff hike may happen in the second half of FY27, compared to the April-September period (H1FY27) expected earlier.

Airtel’s overall robust quarterly performance suggests “no major negative impact of the Middle East conflict on either international roaming revenues or smartphone shipments. Despite no tariff hike in the base quarter, revenue/EBITDA growth on a year-on-year basis was 9%/12%”, according to Citi Research.