Bharti Infratel slips after muted Q4 results

Bharti Infratel fell 2.90% to Rs 293.40 at 11:30 IST on BSE after consolidated net profit rose 0.26% to Rs 607.60 crore on 0.18% increase in net sales to Rs 1,675.80 crore in Q4 March 2019 over Q4 March 2018.

The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 24 April 2019.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 188.83 points, or 0.48% to 39,243.51.

On the BSE, 1.34 lakh shares were traded in the counter so far compared with average daily volumes of 63,000 shares in the past two weeks. The stock had hit a high of Rs 297.60 and a low of Rs 287.50 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 338 on 25 April 2018. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 241.80 on 4 October 2018.

Consolidated EBITDA fell 4% to Rs 1,534 crore in Q4 March 2019 over Q4 March 2018.

The company's tower base increased by 826 year-on-year but fell by 24 sequentially to 92,277 in Q4 March 2019.

Despite major co-location exits in the quarter and during the year due to consolidation in telecom industry, the company has been able to maintain net profit at same level and report operating free cash flow growth of 14% on year-on-year (YoY) basis, the company said in a statement.

Akhil Gupta, chairman, Bharti Infratel, said, "The year gone by saw major consolidation in the Indian telecom industry with four operators ceasing to exist either on account of mergers or outright shut down of operations. Between Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers, approximately 20% of opening co-locations were lost during the year translating to approximately 75,000 co-locations on an overall basis and approximately 40,000 co-locations on consolidated basis, mainly due to merger of Vodafone & Idea. However, despite such unprecedented loss of co-locations, the overall financial performance for the year and the quarter ended 31 March 2019 has only been marginally lower than last year.

We believe that with rapidly growing data demand, large network rollouts will be required, indicating strong potential for the company in coming years and we are already seeing some early signs of acceleration in network rollouts. We are fully prepared to exploit this potential and meet all requirements of our customers for speedy rollouts. The merger process of Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers is on track and we hope that it would be completed in the next few months."

Bharti Infratel is India's leading provider of tower and related infrastructure and it deploys, owns and manages telecom towers and communication structures, for various mobile operators.

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