Started nearly a month ago, shares of Bharti Airtel have approached their record high. The telecom stock hit an intraday high of Rs 1359 in the previous session and later closed at Rs 1348.20 on BSE. On April 24, the stock touched it’s all-time high of Rs 1364.05. The stock has as of late received a get-go from various brokerages post Q4 earnings. With this, JP Morgan has upgraded its target price to INR 1330 from the previous Rs 1100.
The global brokerage said FY24 was largely in line with expectations. Performance in India's mobile business was strong. India mobile business beat led by better subs additions and slightly better ARPU, said the global brokerage.
Additionally, Nomura has increased its price target to INR 1550. “We believe Bharti will continue to benefit from its higher-quality subscriber base vs peers and be able to leverage its significant digital and enterprise initiatives in a 5G landscape, which will enable its transition from a telco to a tech company in the coming years” stated Nomura. While, if we look at it from Motilal Oswal Financial Services’ perspective, it expects a 25% upside on Bharti Airtel stock. Motilal Oswal has raised the target price to INR 1640 apiece.
If we compare it with INR 3,006 crore in the same quarter last year, the telco reported a 31.1 percent year-on-year (YoY) decrease in net profit to INR 2,072 Crore in the March 2024 quarter. Having said that, the revenue has grown YoY to INR 37,599 crore from Rs 36,009 crore at 4.4 percent.
Reaching INR 28,513, Q4 India revenues climbed 12.9 percent while mobile revenues saw an upsurge of 12.9 percent on an YoY basis. This is on an account of improved realization and strong 4G/5G customer additions during the year. Furthermore, driven by sustained focus on acquiring quality customers and mix improvement, ARPU in Q4 climbed to Rs 209 compared with Rs 193.
