While many top experts have repeatedly reiterated that Bharti Airtel is under pressure from Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio, the shares of Indian telecom major have had an excellent run at the bourses, returning more than 72%.  Shares of Indian telecom major Bharti Airtel surged by more than 1.5% on Monday, after the company signed an agreement with the Department of Telecom (DoT) and the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to provide mobile services to over 2,100 unconnected villages in the Northeast. Notably, the shares have beaten the equity benchmark Sensex two times over in the year so far.

Global brokerage firm Nomura has upgraded the stock to ‘Buy’ from ‘Reduce,’ while increasing the target for the scrip to Rs 625 from Rs 330 earlier. Bharti Airtel shares closed at Rs 533.1 on NSE this afternoon. Nomura’s target price implies an upside of  more than 17% from the current market prices.

Nomura says that Bharti Airtel is slated to benefit from industry consolidation. Last month, Bharti Airtel and Tata Group announced that they have entered into an understanding to merge Consumer Mobile Businesses (CMB) of Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) and Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Limited (TTML) into Bharti Airtel. According to a company statement, the merger is being done on a debt-free cash-free basis, except for Bharti Airtel assuming a small portion of the unpaid spectrum liability of Tata’s towards DoT, which is to be paid on deferred basis.

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More recently, it was reported that  Bharti Airtel is looking to buy select spectrum and some equipment of Reliance Communications (RCom), under a process being run by its lenders to sell assets of Rcom piece by piece and recover some portions of the roughly Rs 45,000 crore that it owes them.

Nomura says that normalising competitive intensity in the industry is a positive for Bharti Airtel. After Airtel announced the acquisition with Tata Teleservices, experts pointed out that the it will bolster Airtel’s position vis-a-vis Reliance Jio, as Airtel will get access to 178.5 megahertz (MHz) spectrum (of which 71.3MHz is liberalized or free to trade) in the 850MHz , 1,800MHz and 2,100MHz bands, and help it strengthen its 4G coverage.

“The acquisition of additional spectrum made an attractive business proposition. It will further strengthen our already solid portfolio and create substantial long-term value for our shareholders given the significant synergies,” Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Airtel, said in the statement.

Meanwhile, Credit Suisse said that the management body language in Africa looks positive. This brokerage noted that the management is quite positive on Airtel Money. The foreign brokerage has maintained ‘Neutral’ on the stock with a target of Rs 430 per share.