Dear Shareholders,

In the 2023-24 financial year, your Company continued on its consistent growth trajectory, and recorded a life-high revenue market share across the businesses. The digital highway your Company has built with an investment of
$50 billion+, today, is empowering individuals and businesses alike with secure and reliable digital solutions. As India moves towards the ambitious goal of being a $35 trillion economy by 2047, your Company will have tremendous opportunities for growth and new avenues of business.

India’s Digital Economy

The past year saw robust growth in digitalisation, driven by increased internet penetration, widespread adoption of Digital Public Goods and a continuing surge in internet based activities. The country’s state-of-the-art Digital Public Infrastructure gained international attention for its laudable mass adoption and cost-effectiveness.

The digital economy of India today contributes ~11% of the country’s GDP, underlining the commitment from various stakeholders, including the private sector, in ensuring that India achieves its vision of a $1 trillion Digital Economy at an exponential pace. As the country continues to enhance its digital transformation, 5G will play a critical role in further accelerating the vibrant growth of the digital landscape. Airtel is committed to being at the forefront of this intersection and we are actively working with policymakers, partners, vendors and other stakeholders towards achieving this goal. Your Company will continue to break new ground in being a leader of India’s digital transformation journey.

The Indian economy recorded a steady growth of 8.2%, outpacing several major economies and retaining the title of the world’s fastest-growing economy. Supported by a strong foundation of progressive reforms, domestic demand and a fillip to trade with the push on infrastructure spends, the country’s growth saw deft, cogent decision-making from the Central Bank in navigating global challenges.

Sustained investment in critical sectors such as manufacturing, logistics, infrastructure, and supply chain will enable private-sector participation and propel economic growth. India’s push to proliferate digitisation has made it an outlier in terms of delivering both public services and goods to the last mile. The significance of the telecom industry as an economic multiplier is only likely to increase.

FY 2023-24 was a year of accelerated investments for the industry as operators rapidly rolled out 5G services across India. Airtel’s bold decision to deploy 5G on non-standalone network architecture paid off on all fronts – be that in customer experience, independent validation on network quality or prudent capital allocation.

Our strategy remains simple and clear: keep the customer at the forefront of everything we do. Through this maxim and with razor-sharp execution, we win customers for life. Revenue growth and operational excellence helped your Company deliver strong operating-free cash flows despite front loading of capex. Prudent capital allocation and sustained deleveraging keeps us future ready for potential growth opportunities.

Mobile Services

In FY 2023-24, your Company crossed the milestone of a total of 350 million customers and 250 million data customers. Life-high revenue market share, industry-leading ARPU growth and strong data customer additions are a testament to our strategy and relentless focus on delivering superior experience to our customers. Enduring efforts towards building a postpaid base yielded strong results, with a 2x jump in net additions, entailing a strong customer base of ~23 million. Airtel is also continuously broadening its network coverage to serve more customers in rural India.

A fast-paced rollout of our 5G network has ensured that Airtel 5G Plus is available across the country. The network already has more than 72 million 5G customers, and the number is continuing to grow rapidly.

Enterprise and Homes Business

Airtel Business maintained its double-digit revenue growth trajectory, driven by strong traction in India–a truly laudable feat amid challenges in the global business landscape. Home Broadband saw sustained growth momentum and accelerated home pass expansion. Our Digital TV business recorded revenue growth and positive net adds after two years. All three businesses reported strong EBITDA growth and sustained improvement in market share.

Airtel Business is building a world-class infrastructure for B2B customers, including undersea cables, national
long-distance fiber network, and data centres. In parallel, we are building a suite of digital services to address customer needs, and closely working with several enterprises to develop 5G specific use cases. Your Company is accelerating home pass expansion to secure growth emerging from strong tailwinds in the Home Broadband business. In FY 2023-24, we rolled out 6.9 million fiber home passes achieved a net addition of 1.6 million subscribers, resulting in a revenue growth of 23%. Airtel has also launched FWA services and plans to expand it across the country.

Digital

Over the years, Airtel has invested considerably and ingrained digital at the core of its strategy. This has enabled your Company to attract high-value customers, increase its share of wallet across the customer base and importantly, drive cost efficiencies. Fuelled with customer obsession and innovation, Airtel is harnessing the power of platforms, ushering in a new era of digital products and services. Our digital infrastructure platform stores over 100 petabytes of data. We have incubated multiple digital platforms and services - most of them built in-house. The B2C digital portfolio, including Airtel Wynk, Airtel Thanks and Xstream, has 220 million monthly active users.

Building a Future Ready Network

FY 2023-24 was a landmark year that saw the largest-ever rollout of network towers and fiber deployment, along with accelerated 5G roll-out nationwide. Networks are now viewed with a digital lens to improve agility and efficiency with a frugal mindset. We have been deploying multiple digital tools and platforms – from planning to operating complex networks. These tools are being built in-house and are delivering phenomenal results with the proactive identification of faults to improve customer experience, cost optimisation and sustainability of networks.

Your Company has also actively responded to the nation’s call for indigenisation. Our domestic procurement contribution of hardware (network and non-network) has increased by ~30% in the last two years, with some critical components being entirely sourced domestically.

Partnerships

Airtel continues to grow its long-term strategic relationships with key partners, including Amazon, CISCO, Ericsson, Google, IBM, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, Nokia, Oracle, Qualcomm, Samsung, and many more to deliver superior products and services to our customers.

Africa

Our Africa operations recorded a strong net customer additions, crossing the 150 million customer base milestone. Airtel Africa delivered strong underlying revenue and EBITDA performance, along with operating free cash generation. In constant currency, revenue and EBITDA growth were strong at 20.9% and 21.3%, respectively. Currency devaluation across key markets of operations overshadowed our robust underlying performance. However, the operating performance underscores inherent growth opportunities across the markets of operation and your Company’s commitment to delivering affordable services and a superior experience. Capital allocation priorities, along with focus on de-risking the balance sheet, limited the impact of severe forex volatility. Our balance sheet remains strong, with a comfortable net debt-to-EBITDA of 1.45x. Backed by human capital and a strong pool of natural resources of the African continent, we remain optimistic on the long-term growth opportunities and potential value creation in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Balance Sheet

Operational excellence and prudent capital allocation resulted in a strong consolidated operating free cash generation of `396 billion, amid elevated investments. During the year, Airtel India pre-paid high cost spectrum debt in addition to other debt payment obligations. Your Company continues to aim towards sustained deleveraging and making the balance sheet stronger for future growth opportunities.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Over the years, the Bharti Airtel Foundation has amplified its efforts towards digitalisation through collaborations to bring technology and high-quality digital content to students in rural India. Through its corporate partnerships, the Foundation provides digital infrastructure in rural schools – be that in the form of digital classrooms, computer labs, or even advanced technology-enabled robotic labs. Presently, it operates seven robotic/advanced technology labs. During the year, the Foundation launched the Teacher App (TAPP), a technologybased platform that provides high-quality learning resources for teachers – ensuring steady upskilling of trainers in our endeavour to empowering children with digital tools and knowledge. The Foundation has also supported Plaksha University, a world-class technology institution, where, besides giving a generous financial endowment, it is continuing to support meritorious students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds with the Bharti Scholarship. Additionally, the Foundation is engaged with India’s first DesignX University, Anant National University, to establish a cutting-edge School of Future Technologies. At the J.C. Bose University of Science & Technology, the Foundation is providing scholarships to deserving women candidates in the BTech program. Across all programs, the Bharti Airtel Foundation has supported 200 students with scholarships/ awards for higher education during the 2023-24 academic year. Our partnerships with IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, and initiatives at the Cambridge University and the Bharti School of Public Policy at ISB Mohali, where financial contributions have been made, continue to provide opportunities, exposure and support to young students.

Sustainability and Governance

Airtel’s well-governed and robust ESG framework demonstrates our commitment and responsibility towards the environment and society. Our investments are evaluated through the lens of economic and social value creation. By embracing responsible business practices, we are not only fostering long-term value creation and mitigating risks but also aligning our interests with partners and stakeholders. Public and private sector collaborations towards network greening through open access and enabling higher use of alternate sources of energy will be crucial in building and running sustainable networks.

Vote of Thanks

I express my gratitude to investors who instilled confidence in Airtel, and for an overwhelming response to our recently listed subsidiary company, Bharti Hexacom Limited. I want to thank Mr. D.K. Mittal, Mr. V.K. Viswanathan and Mr. Pradeep Kumar Sinha for their guidance, contribution, and service to the Company as Directors. I also welcome Mr. Douglas Baillie and Justice (Retd.) Arjan Kumar Sikri to the Board. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to our Board members, management team, employees and esteemed customers, partners, suppliers, distribution network partners and our valued shareholders for their continued support and confidence.

Sunil Bharti Mittal

Chairman