Bharti Airtel briefly surpassed HDFC Bank on Monday to become India’s second-largest company by market capitalization, but marginal losses in its shares toward the day’s close resulted in a return to third place.
Shares of Bharti Airtel increased by 1.72 percent to ₹1,938.10 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). At that time, Airtel’s total market capitalization was ₹11,80,328 crore, just below HDFC Bank’s ₹11,82,223 crore, with fluctuations noted throughout the trading session, after Airtel reached an intra-day high of ₹1,953.80. Reliance Industries remains the most valuable company in India, valued at ₹18.04 lakh crore.
Airtel’s stock has experienced over a 10 percent rise in the past week, outperforming the wider market significantly, as evidenced by its one-year returns of 6.8 percent compared to a negative 5.54 percent for the Nifty 50 index. Conversely, HDFC Bank has seen a decline of 22.53 percent year-to-date and 20.63 percent over the past year. This downturn is attributed in part to the unexpected resignation of its part-time chairman, Atanu Chakraborty. Company management has insisted that there are no governance issues.
The increase in Airtel’s market cap follows strong Q4 FY26 results, which showed a 15.6 percent year-on-year growth in revenue from operations to ₹55,383 crore. Revenue from India’s mobile segment rose by 8.3 percent, bolstered by a higher Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), which improved to ₹257 from ₹245 a year prior. However, net profit declined by 33.5 percent to ₹7,325 crore, primarily due to a high comparative base from one-time gains in the previous quarter.
Looking forward, Airtel aims to deploy 56 edge data centers over the next 18 to 24 months and has committed ₹20,000 crore to ventures in non-banking financial services. Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal also expressed the goal of increasing Bharti Telecom’s stake back to 51 percent over the next decade, up from its current holding of over 40 percent.
Published on May 18, 2026.
