Despite India business loss, Bharti Airtel still in pole position even as pricing war with Reliance Jio wreaks havoc

Despite posting its lowest ever quarterly profit in the fourth quarter, analysts believe that telecom major Bharti Airtel will maintain its leading market share position given its huge network and spectrum footprint. The numbers released on Tuesday did not project a rosy picture for the country’s largest telecom player, as the constant pricing war since the launch of Reliance Jio in 2016 continues to wreak havoc on the telecom players. Improvement in Africa business margins and growth in data segment offered a silver lining to the otherwise dismal numbers.

However, analysts expect stability in the telecom sector to emerge in the current fiscal.

Goldman Sachs in an analyst report said the market is currently not fully pricing in robust growth in some of Bharti’s other businesses. Besides, it’s relatively strong balance sheet and spectrum/network footprint is likely to result in the telecom major maintaining its leading market share position in an intensely competitive but consolidating wireless market.

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Bharti has not over-reacted to Reliance Jio’s pricing actions in late January and has kept its pricing plans largely unchanged, suggesting that the former may not just blindly respond to RJio and plans to place a floor to prices, according to JP Morgan analysts.

Mansi Taneja, DNA Money