India’s mobile revenue growth moderated as expected, after lapping last year’s tariff increase. As the IPO of Jio nears, we foresee another potential price increase. Separately for Vodafone Idea, we think AGR relief seems likely but we question whether this is sufficient to enable the company to reach “escape velocity” and become a viable 3rd operator again.
Bharti has always performed well in anticipation of price increases, which we think are likely in H1 next year. The company also looks set to be seeing accelerating growth in both Home, and Enterprise, while Airtel Africa continues to knock it out of the park, and capex is constrained. What’s not to like? PT to 2,750.
Mobile trends accelerated with margin expansion a recurring theme across the board. Both Jio and Bharti have recently discontinued their lowest entry pack which should sustain ARPU in the low-double digits, however the bullishness in mobile trajectory appears to have already been reflected in consensus.
A director at Bharti Airtel Ltd sold 71,000,000 shares at 1,814.080INR and the significance rating of the trade was 71/100. Is that information sufficient for you to make an investment decision? This report gives details of those trades and adds context and analysis to them such that you can judge whether these trading decisions are ones worth following. Included in the report is a detailed share price chart which plots discretionary trades by all the company's directors over the last two year...
Following a similar note we published on the EM Telco sector, we apply the same consistent approach to Equity FCF for Global EM Towers. We have preferred Telcos over Towers for some time, as the drivers of upside for the Telcos (consolidation and declining capital intensity) is a headwind for the Towers.
India’s mobile sector sustained mid-teen growth again, though we expect a slowdown to high single digits from 2QFY25 onwards once last July’s tariff increase is lapped. Margin expansion remains a theme too. We stay constructive on India with Bharti Airtel as our preferred pick, but would continue to see Singtel as having more upside.
It was another very strong month for our picks as the EM Telco bull market continues. As we have been arguing for some time EM Telco is a much better space than it used to be, and the market has now started to understand this. This note also includes key news & other thoughts, to try to help investors generate alpha within the EM Telco space.
We analyze the capex history & outlook for Global EM Telcos. For this group capex is falling rapidly (-12% in 2024 in US$) as competitive intensity improves and markets consolidate. Excluding China and India, EM Telco capex is already down 23% from peak.
Still Bearish/Cautious; Stick With Defensives Since late-February (2/25/25 Compass and 2/27/25 Int'l Compass) we had been expecting an 8-10% pullback to provide a buying opportunity. However, after getting the 10%+ pullback, we discussed in our 4/1/25 Compass and 4/3/25 Int'l Compass how we no longer saw it as a buying opportunity, and we downgraded our outlook to bearish/cautious, citing several concerning developments. A historic selloff ensued. We then discussed last week (4/8/25 Compass) ho...
Over the weekend, Vodafone Idea announced that the government will more than double their equity stake to 48.99% from 22.6% through the conversion of INR 369.5bn (US$ 4.3bn) in spectrum dues. As of this writing, the stock spiked up by 19% today. Further to what we had previously written on the nationalisation of Vodafone Idea, we lay out our initial thoughts below.
Trends continued to benefit from last July’s tariff hike with sustained margin expansion across all three operators. Capex intensity is expected to moderate further for Bharti as network build decelerates, whereas VIL would accelerate its spending on the back of its 5G launch in March. India’s FWA development remains promising, with potential positive implications on EM Telcos
Indian FWA net adds continue to accelerate and reached roughly c. 2.1m in the December quarter. India is probably therefore now accounting for around 50% of global shipments. We continue to think this is a critical development, and likely to drive an S-curve of adoption in Global EM.
Indian press is reporting that the Indian government is planning to cut AGR liabilities for the industry by around INR 1 trn (c. $12bn), by cutting 50% of interest and 100% of penalties and interest on penalties relating to the AGR fines. Implication would be a c. INR 520bn (US$ 6.2bn) reduction in liabilities for Vodafone IDEA and around INR 380bn (US $4.5bn) for Bharti.
FWA will likely be the key themes of 2025 in Indian Telcos we think, with the market likely to be delivering 5m+ quarterly net adds by the end of the year. This is likely to drive renewed optimism towards Bharti and enable Jio to IPO. Given Jio’s valuation of approaching $200bn if it happens this is likely to be one of the biggest events in Global Telecoms this year. On rolling forward our DCF our Indus pt rises to INR 325 and we lift our recommendation to Neutral, and stay Buyers of both Bharti...
With the company unlikely to have been able to engineer a meaningful recovery by the end of the moratorium on payments to the govt, and the stock trading below the level at which it can issue new shares, we see the most likely outcome now as creeping nationalisation. Bad for VIL, but great for Bharti and Jio. We discuss implications for Indus in a separate note out today.
Unfortunately, this report is not available for the investor type or country you selected.
Report is subscription only.
Thank you, your report is ready.
Thank you, your report is ready.