In an analyst meeting, the company focused on multiple growth engines, premiumisation and digital shift along with its 5G preparedness. Bharti Airtel’s shares rose 3.4% to close at ₹733.35 on Monday.
Motilal Oswal has maintained a buy rating on Bharti Airtel with a target price of ₹910 and Jefferies maintained a buy with a target price of ₹860.
“Bharti has achieved significant scale on its payments bank and is progressing strongly across its other digital initiatives as well; its emerging B2B businesses are poised to grow at a rapid scale in the coming years and further add to the growth of the wireless business,” said Kotak Institutional Equities which has a buy rating and target price of ₹850 on the stock.
Maintaining a buy rating with a target price of ₹915, CLSA said Bharti’s forecast and valuation have upside potential.
“Bharti Airtel’s (Bharti) CEO said its India mobile revenue share of 35% was a new high, led by the sector’s highest Arpu and that it has been building strong digital assets. Also, Bharti’s non-mobile businesses are growing ahead of mobile and the CEO sees big opportunities in its Airtel Black converged offering,” said CLSA.
“We came back from Bharti’s investor day believing our forecast and valuation have upside,” the brokerage said.
Analysts at Jefferies said Bharti Airtel offers strong growth at a reasonable valuation.
Some analysts said their bullishness is driven by an expectation of more frequent tariff hikes. Analysts expect Bharti to benefit from an increase in average revenue per user and an improvement in subscriber mix.
“We expect tariff hikes to be more frequent, going forward, with Jio more willing to participate in tariff hikes given that it also needs to start focussing on profitability,” said JM Financial, maintaining a buy rating with a target price of ₹900.
