Idea Cellular, Bharti Airtel fall post Q4 results

Idea Cellular dipped 5% to Rs 183, while Bharti Airtel dipped 4% at Rs 385 on the BSE.

Shares of telecom services provider Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel have fallen by up to 5% on the bourses on profit booking despite reporting a good set of numbers for the quarter ended March 2015 (Q4).

Idea Cellular has dipped 5% to Rs 183, falling nearly 8% from its intra-day high of Rs 198 touched on the BSE in early morning trade.

The country’s third largest mobile operator, on Tuesday reported a 66% year-on-year (YoY) jump in its standalone net profit at Rs 1,078 crore for the fourth quarter, which was better than Street estimates of Rs 850 crore. Revenues, too, beat Street estimates growing by 22% in the fourth quarter over the corresponding quarter last year to Rs 8,541 crore.

However, Shobhit Khare analyst at Motilal Oswal Securities said, given expected increase in amortization and finance costs on account of recent around Rs 30,000 crore outlays towards spectrum, continued above-industry growth would be critical for earnings to hold.

Bharti Airtel too slipped 4% at Rs 385 on the BSE.  The country’s largest telecom service provider, has posted a 30% YoY rise in net profit at Rs 1,255 crore for the quarter ended March this year, owing to growth in data revenue. For the March 2015 quarter, the company’s revenue rose 3.6% to Rs 23,016 crore from Rs 22,219 crore in the corresponding period last year.

“De-growth on Africa and South Asia front remains the cause of concern. Excluding the international business, Bharti’s performance in domestic space was largely in-line with our expectation. However, Bharti’s performance in India was way below the Idea’s performance. Additionally, Reliance-JIO launch remains the overhang. As a result, we maintain HOLD with the downward revision in target from Rs 399/share to Rs 374/share on Bharti,” said analyst at IndiaNivesh Securities in results review.