Bharti Airtel’s share price has surged over 4% in the early trading hours after the telecom giant reported a strong earnings, with a net profit of Rs 16,134.6 crore in Q3FY25.
As of 10:20 AM IST, Bharti Airtel’s share price was Rs 1,699.50, up 4.92% or 79.75 points today.
The market capitalisation of the company as of the stands at Rs 10.15 lakh crore, with a 52-week high of Rs 1,779 and a low of Rs 1,097.65.
Let’s take a look at what brokerages say on Airtel’s stock:
CLSA: Outperform, Target Rs 1,860
CLSA has maintained its Outperform rating. According to the brokerage firm CLSA, Airtel posted a strong performance in India’s mobile segment, with a 21%-30% YoY jump in revenue and EBITDA.
Furthermore, the brokerage noted that the telecom operator’s ARPU remains significantly ahead of Jio, and subscriber growth was a key highlight to this.
UBS: Neutral, target Rs 1,705
UBS has maintained a Neutral rating on Airtel with a target price of Rs 1,705. The brokerage firm UBS called Airtel’s results largely in line with expectations, with home broadband exceeding estimates, while the enterprise segment slightly underperformed.
It also pointed out that Airtel added 6.5 million 4G subscribers and showed strong postpaid user growth.
HSBC: Buy, target Rs 1,940
The brokerage house, HSBC remains bullish on Bharti Airtel. According to them, strong growth levers, including rising ARPU, expanding home broadband subscriptions, increasing free cash flow (FCF), and dividend growth are some of the key factors to this.
Morgan Stanley: Equal-weight, target Rs 1,650
Morgan Stanley noted that Bharti Airtel’s revenue (excluding passive infrastructure) met estimates, while EBITDA surpassed expectations by 2%. The brokerage also highlighted the company’s strong free cash flow generation and debt reduction, narrowing its net debt by nearly $1 billion QoQ.
Airtel’s Q3FY25 performance
India’s second largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel reported a Rs 14,760 crore net profit, which is a 483% increase from Rs 2,530 crore in the same quarter last year.
A major portion of this jump came from the consolidation of Indus Towers, which contributed Rs 14,322.5 crore to the company’s earnings. However, the profit surge was partially offset by Rs 6,358.6 crore in regulatory levies and an impairment charge of Rs 1,740.4 crore on intangible assets.
Bharti Airtel’s India mobile revenue and EBITDA grew by 21% and 30% YoY, respectively. Its ARPU rose 5% QoQ and 18% YoY, now standing 21% higher than Reliance Jio’s ARPU.
Airtel’s stock performance
Following the announcement of its Q3 results on February 6, Bharti Airtel’s share price saw an upward momentum in today’s trading session, surging over 4% in the early hours.
Over the past five days, the share price of Airtel has delivered a 3.80% return, while in the last six months, it has gained 17.58%. On a one year basis, Bharti Airtel share price has delivered a 49.45% return.