Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel, RIL: Share price targets ahead of Q4 results

Telecom sector companies led by Bharti Airtel Ltd and Reliance Jio Infocomm (Reliance Industries) are likely to clock a strong year-on-year (YoY) revenue growth for the March quarter, but muted growth sequentially due to the fewer days in the quarter and the limited incremental benefit of the June 2024 tariff hike. 

ICICI Securities finds Vodafone Idea worth Rs 8. It has targets of Rs 1,925 on Bharti Airtel and Rs 335 on Indus Towers. BNP Paribas suggested a target of Rs 2,000 for Bharti Airtel against Rs 1,825 earlier. For RIL as a whole, BNP Paribas trimmed its target to Rs 1,670 from Rs 1,720 as lowered FY26-27 earnings by 8-9 per cent owing to factor in lower operating profit  assumptions for O2C and O&G businesses. For Indus Towers, BNP Paribas suggested a fresh target of Rs 490 against Rs 480 earlier. Nomura has a target of Rs 10 on Vodafone Idea and Rs 1,850 on Bharti Airtel. 

ICICI Securities sees VIL Q4 losses at Rs 7,626 crore. It sees Vodafone Idea's sales rising 3.5 per cent YoY to Rs 10,982 crore. For Bharti Airtel, revenue is seen jumping 34.5 per cent to Rs 50,587 crore and profit 226 per cent to Rs 6,758 crore. 

For Vodafone Idea, JM Financial sees Q4 losses at Rs 7,420 crore. Net sales are seen rising 2.2 per cent YoY to Rs 10,885 crore. This brokerage sees Bharti Airtel's profit growing multi-folds to Rs 3,459 crore. Sales are seen rising 33.3 per cent YoY to Rs 50,530 crore. 

For Bharti Airtel, BNP Paribas sees strong revenue growth YoY, helped by tariff hikes taken 
in July 2024, saying Airtel is seeing moderation in capex and is expanding operations in a capex-efficient manner. Indus Towers, BNP Paribas said, has almost fully collected past dues from Vodafone Idea (VIL). Also, several of the company’s long-standing litigations concluded in its favour, BNP noted. 

In the case of Jio, it is seen reporting 2 per cent QoQ revenue growth, led by subscriber additions and the residual impact of the tariff hike. 

"As for RIL, we raise our target multiple for Jio, in-line with Airtel’s, while we lower the multiples slightly for retail and O2C in line with the decline in peer multiples. For Indus Towers, we see the recent conversion of debt into equity in Vodafone Idea by the government as a significant positive as it pushes out the debt risk for VIL by a few years," BNP Paribas said.