30 March 2020
Company Update | Sector: Telecom
Bharti Airtel
BSE SENSEX
28,441
S&P CNX
8,281
CMP: INR 429
TP: INR 620(+44% )
Buy
Still a lot of juice left!
Incremental ARPU growth opportunity not captured
Bloomberg
Equity Shares (m)
M.Cap.(INRb)/(USDb)
52-Week Range (INR)
1, 6, 12 Rel. Per (%)
12M Avg Val (INR M)
Free float (%)
BHARTI IN
5,455
2351.6 / 32.5
569 / 305
8/43/67
5456
41.0
Financials & Valuations (INR b)
FY20E FY21E FY22E
Y/E March
Sales
871.9 1,018.2 1,111.8
EBITDA
365.8 457.5 508.4
Adj. PAT
3.6
21.2
27.2
EBIT Margin (%) 42.0
44.9
45.7
Adj. EPS (INR)
0.7
3.9
5.0
EPS Gr. (%)
-107.7 479.7
28.5
BV/Sh. (INR)
161.0 164.9 169.9
Ratios
Net D:E
1.2
1.0
0.8
RoE (%)
0.5
2.4
3.0
RoCE (%)
3.1
4.3
5.1
Payout (%)
0.0
0.0
0.0
Valuations
EV/EBITDA (x)
9.6
7.3
6.2
P/E (x)
641.1 110.6
86.1
P/BV (x)
2.7
2.6
2.5
Div. Yield (%)
0.0
0.0
0.0
FCF Yield (%)
-9.1
9.3
9.6
Shareholding pattern (%)
As On
Dec-19 Sep-19 Dec-18
Promoter
62.7
62.7
67.1
DII
14.1
13.2
13.9
FII
16.5
22.4
17.2
Others
6.7
1.7
1.8
FII Includes depository receipts
Stock Performance (1-year)
Currently, the Bharti Airtel (BHARTI) stock is down ~20% from its peak due to
the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and the consequent complete lockdown
in India.
Additionally, both BHARTI and Vodafone-Idea (VIL) are facing the ire of the
Supreme Court (SC), which recently dismissed their plea toward self-
assessment of AGR liabilities.
We see limited impact of COVID-19, currency and crude price swings on the
BHARTI stock and believe that it is the best hedged to face regulatory woes.
Through this report, we look at how BHARTI is placed in the current tough
environment and the key catalysts at hand for it to deliver.
COVID-19 to have limited impact on earnings
Given the complete lockdown in India due to COVID-19, net subscriber adds
(average 2-3 months) have stalled thus impacted by 1-2%. With physical
recharges being unavailable, there has been a shift to digital recharges (from
15% in the last 1-2 years to 35-40% currently). In the current environment,
more tech-savvy data subscribers with higher ARPUs and longer-term
recharges of 90 days may see lower impact. However, the rest of feature
phone subscribers doing monthly recharges (one-third the ARPU of data
subscribers), could see some marginal impact as to protect these low income
subscribers (80m), BHARTI has extended free incoming calls until 17
th
Apr’20
with additional INR10 talk-time. This could impact 1QFY21 revenue/EBITDA
by INR2.2b/INR1.8b i.e. equivalent to meager 1-2%. Against this, increased
data consumption should see upgrades in recharge values, thus, mitigating
the impact. In 4QFY20/1QFY21, we currently estimate 13%/19% revenue
growth on QoQ basis.
Currency and crude fluctuation impact much lower
The recent sharp INR depreciation should increase BHARTI’s USD capex/debt
and put some of its African business under stress due to its high crude
exports. However, we do not expect a meaningful impact. The USD
denominated India capex is ~30%, thus, 10% INR depreciation could have ~3%
increase. Similarly, ~28% of BHARTI’s debt is USD denominated while India
debt is 15%. The sharp reduction in crude prices could result in revenue
softness in the short term, particularly in Nigeria, Congo and Chad. However,
BHARTI’s FCF positive position and lower leverage should have limited impact.
Expect strong ARPU increase or market share gains
We believe that BHARTI remains in a win-win situation, irrespective of the
SC’s
outcome on VIL’s fortunes. The government has been pitching for a
healthy telecom market (3 private and 1 PSU player), which accentuates the
need for VIL to stay afloat. However, VIL’s survival will require a sharp ARPU
increase (potentially >30%) along with moratorium of payments to service its
regulatory and debt obligations, which could also benefit BHARTI. Further,
Research Analyst: Aliasgar Shakir(Aliasgar.Shakir@motilaloswal.com);
+91 22 6129 1565
Suhel Shaikh
(Suhel.Ahmad@MotilalOswal.com); +91 22 5036 2611;
Anshul Aggarwal
(Anshul.Aggarwal@motilaloswal.com); +91 22 5036 2511
3 September 2019
1
Motilal Oswal research is available on www.motilaloswal.com/Institutional-Equities, Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, Factset and S&P Capital.
Investors are advised to refer through important disclosures made at the last page of the Research Report.