Bharti Airtel is scaling back its expansion into smart home segments like home surveillance and security, choosing instead to double down on its core home broadband business. During the Q4 FY2025 earnings call, Gopal Vittal, Vice Chairman and MD of Bharti Airtel, said the company’s foray into home security solutions had seen limited success and required disproportionate internal resources.
Airtel Xsafe: Modest Success, High Effort
Launched two years ago, Airtel Xsafe offered advanced home surveillance solutions, including 360-degree swivel cameras, motion detection, cloud storage, and mobile alerts. Despite acquiring around 500,000 loyal customers, the service remained a low-ARPU, niche offering.
“We saw modest success. Customers were sticky, but the segment was small and demanded significant effort from our teams. As a result, we’ve decided to slow down investments in this adjacency and refocus on capturing a larger share of the home broadband market,” Vittal explained.
Refocusing on Home Broadband Leadership
Vittal emphasized that Airtel’s current strategy is to aggressively grow its presence in India’s home broadband space, believing that opportunities in smart home services will grow alongside rising incomes and digital adoption.
Smart Home: A Niche, Even Globally
He noted that even in developed markets, adjacencies like home security represent a minor portion of broadband spending. “We’re monitoring this space closely, but we don’t want to dilute our focus by chasing a segment that doesn’t yet move the needle for us,” he said.
IPTV Launch Strengthens Broadband Offering
Airtel has also recently introduced IPTV services, aimed at enhancing customer experience, encouraging service bundling, and reducing costs tied to traditional set-top boxes.
