Bharti Airtel bucks trend after brokerage upgrade

Bharti Airtel rose 1.27% to Rs 327.60 at 11:08 IST on BSE after a foreign brokerage upgraded its rating on the stock to outperform from underperform.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 135.85 points, or 0.65%, to 20,789.76.

On BSE, so far 77,000 shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 3.61 lakh shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 329.50 and a low of Rs 324.50 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 373.50 on 1 November 2013. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 266.95 on 5 April 2013.

The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 12 December 2013, sliding 4.15% compared with the Sensex's 3.17% rise. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 1.67% as against Sensex's 5.78% rise.

The large-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 1998.70 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5.

The foreign brokerage also raised its target price on the stock to Rs 375 per share. According to the brokerage house, risk reward in case of Bharti Airtel (Airtel) has turned favourable, India pricing pressures have abated, data ramp-up is at inflection point and Africa operations have stabilised.

Airtel and Reliance Jio Infocomm (Reliance Jio) on 10 December 2013, announced a comprehensive telecom infrastructure sharing arrangement under which they will share infrastructure created by both parties. This will include optic fibre network - inter and intra city, submarine cable networks, towers and internet broadband services and other such opportunities identified in the future. The cooperation is aimed at avoiding duplication of infrastructure, wherever possible, and to preserve capital and the environment. This will also provide redundancy in order to ensure seamless services to customers of the respective parties.

On 9 December 2011, the company announced partnership with Government of Punjab to expand high speed 4G LTE services across the state. The company will invest over Rs 4000 crore in the Indian State of Punjab over the next 5 years to expand services and contribute to the Government of Punjab's digital inclusion agenda. Airtel and the Government of Punjab signed an agreement on the sidelines of the Progressive Punjab Investors Summit, under which Airtel will take its high speed 4G LTE services to all towns and villages across Punjab.

Bharti Airtel's consolidated net profit declined 29% to Rs 512 crore on 9.9% growth in net sales to Rs 21324.40 crore in Q2 September 2013 over Q2 September 2012.

Bharti Airtel is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 4 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 281 million customers across its operations at the end of October 2013.

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