India’s mobile sector quickened its topline pace to 10% YoY, led by better net additions and a sustained MSD ARPU trend. EBITDA margins continue to rise while capex is set to moderate for both Bharti and Jio. On the other hand, Vodafone has guided to spend between INR 500bn and 550bn on network expansion over the next three years after finally raising new equity.
India’s telecom industry continue to grow in the HSD, with Bharti and Jio improving at the expense of VIL. Industry ARPU tracked MSD again even without any meaningful tariff hikes; we expect increases to be put through in 2H CY24 though that has largely been priced in. EBITDA continue to trend ahead of topline, with YoY margins improvement across the board. Earlier last month, the government also approved the auction for 10,523 MHz of spectrum which starts from INR 963bn (USD 11.6bn). However, w...
India’s telecom industry continue to grow in the HSD, with Bharti outperforming on mobile service revenue growth on a YoY basis again. Whilst Jio posted better net additions, its ARPU trend was softer. Bharti’s Enterprise business did slow down however, largely a function of the deferred spending by global OTT players driven by current global macro.
Jio in India has announced the commercial launch of JioAirFiber, their 5G FWA service. The start of the service by the leader in the world’s most populated country is likely to be game-changing for global FWA subscriber figures and is consistent with Reliance’s target of 100m FWA customers in the medium term. Thoughts and implications below.
Strong momentum in Retail and Jio continue to offset O2C revenue decline, which was function of a high comparable base driven by high fuel cracks as a result of the Russian-Ukraine war. Despite overall revenue decline, EBITDA continued to grow on higher margin mix within Jio and efficiencies within Retail.
India’s telecom fundamentals remained healthy in Q3, despite the slowdown in service revenue as the effect of last year’s price increase lapsed. EBITDA trend improved again, while capex intensity is expected to stay elevated to support 5G and rural rollout.
Bharti has performed extremely well over the last 2 years. While we remain bullish, we think that some of the near term upside is priced in, especially on the consumer mobile side. We stay bullish long term but having had a good run into the end of the year, we expect the stock to take a breather in the near term.
Despite fears that EM ARPUs would be impacted by rising food and energy prices (which we always felt were overdone), growth in Q2 remained strong for the leading telcos we track. In fact, with Brazil the latest market to see growth improve (albeit remaining below local inflation), Q2 represented another quarter where a simple average of growth was above 10%. Our thesis remains that EM telcos are set to grow sustainably at GDP+ rates.
RIL reported a robust set of Q1 results across the board, with three segments reporting a record quarter. Jio Platforms rebounded to positive net additions; Reliance Retail’s footfall surpassed pre-COVID level while higher crude oil prices and fuel margins drove O2C’s growth.
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