BSNL’s Q1 loss widens to ₹1,280 crore as expenses outpace revenue growth

State-owned telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) continued to post losses in the April-June quarter (Q1) of financial year 2026-27 (FY27), with the loss widening from a year earlier as higher expenses outpaced modest revenue growth.

BSNL reported a consolidated net loss of ₹1,280 crore in the first quarter of FY27, rising from ₹1,007 crore a year earlier, according to the company’s financial statement published on its website. Sequentially, however, the losses narrowed from ₹1,419 crore in January-March quarter.

To be sure, BSNL has restated its financial statements for FY26 to include those of merged entity Bharat Broadband Network Ltd, after the corporate affairs ministry in May approved the scheme of merger between the entities. The Cabinet had given its approval to the merger in July 2022.

Excluding the BBNL financials, BSNL in the March quarter reported a net loss of ₹1,269 crore.

The company's total expenses rose 5.5% year-on-year in the June quarter to ₹7,242.5 crore.

Employee costs, which account for 37% of the company’s revenue from operations, rose 1.8% year-on-year (y-o-y) to ₹1,974.5 crore. Network expenses increased 28% from a year earlier but fell 5% sequentially to ₹1,761 crore. Depreciation and amortization expenses rose 9.6% year-on-year but declined 18.6% sequentially to ₹2,394.5 crore.

The company's revenue from operations rose 4.2% year-on-year and 2% quarter-on-quarter to ₹5,306 crore. BSNL’s mainstay consumer mobility business grew 12% year-on-year but fell 7.5% sequentially to ₹2,282 crore.

The enterprise services business also grew 12% from a year earlier but fell marginally on-quarter to ₹1,736 crore. The third vertical - consumer fixed access- declined 14.5% year-on-year but rose 29.5% sequentially to ₹1,290 crore.

BSNL's results come at a time when it is working to expand its 4G network. However, service quality issues continue to affect its users. According to drive test reports by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), BSNL’s mobile network performance has been weak compared to private operators, often below the quality of service benchmarks set by the regulator at most of the places.

The telecom operator had installed 105,290 4G indigenous sites by April-end and is rolling out its 5G network in Delhi, according to its response to a parliamentary panel.

“BSNL's 3 core business verticals—Enterprise Business, Consumer Mobility and Consumer Fixed Access (CFA)—continue to drive the company's growth,” communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said last month in a strategic review meeting with BSNL executives.

“Arpu (average revenue per user) has grown from ₹100, which is where we closed at FY2025-26. (In) Q1, it has increased to about ₹102.7,” Scindia had said.

Arpu is a key telecom metric that reflects the average monthly revenue generated per subscriber and is widely used to gauge a telecom company's profitability and monetization.

To be sure, the communications ministry, in a statement dated 23 April, said that BSNL’s Arpu rose 42% to ₹101 in FY26 from ₹71 in the previous year. The growth in Arpu was in sharp contrast to BSNL’s revenue growth of 1.7% in FY26. Mint reported on 30 April that while BSNL maintained it was entering a growth phase driven by rising 4G data usage, analysts had questioned the sharp increase in Arpu.

The discrepancy is significant because mobile Arpu—a key measure of revenue health—is calculated by dividing mobile-services revenue by the number of active subscribers. It can rise as customers spend more, because the subscriber mix shifts towards higher-paying users, or because the number of active subscribers declines.

BSNL's cellular business, however, posted a meagre 1% growth in FY26 to ₹5,571 crore. Analysts said the sharp rise in Arpu despite weak revenue growth suggests the increase may have been driven largely by a shrinking active subscriber base.

According to data from the Trai, BSNL's total mobile subscriber base stood at 93 million at the end of June, compared to 92.9 million at the end of the preceding quarter. The subscriber base grew by 2.5 million from 90.5 million in June 2025.

However, its active subscriber base has been declining steadily and stood at 52.2 million at the end of May, according to a 29 June note by brokerage IIFL Capital citing the Trai data.