Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea Correct 1-5% On Losing More Subscribers In July

Shares of Vodafone Idea fell nearly 5 percent and Bharti Airtel slipped 1.5 percent intraday on September 18 after the telecom majors continued losing subscribers in July.

Although Reliance Industries gained 1.6 percent as Jio continued adding subscribers every month.

Vodafone Idea, the largest company in terms of wireless subscribers base, lost 33.9 lakh users. Bharti Airtel also lost 25.8 lakh subscribers in July, whereas Reliance Jio added a whopping 81.8 lakh subscribers during the month.

State-owned entity BSNL also added 2.9 lakh subscribers in July, but MTNL lost 5,833 users in same month.

TRAI said total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA & LTE) increased from 116.55 crore at the end of Jun-19 to 116.83 crore at the end of July 19, thereby registering a monthly growth of 0.24 percent.

Wireless subscription in urban areas increased from 65.73 crore at the end of June to 65.99 crore at the end of July, a growth of 0.4 percent. Wireless subscription in rural areas increased from 50.82 crore at the end of June to 50.85 crore at the end of July, a growth of 0.05 percent, it added.

The private access service providers held 89.73 percent market share of the wireless subscribers whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU access service providers, had a market share of only 10.27 percent as of July 2019, the telecom regulator said.

Meanwhile, Citi retained its buy call on Bharti Airtel but slashed price target to Rs 400 from Rs 405 as the brokerage made (-2 percent to +2 percent) changes to its EBITDA forecasts.

The company remained its only buy in the sector, it said, adding diversified revenue stream has held it in good stead and India mobile business has started showing traction.

Airtel has firmly established itself as the No. 2 player in 4G, Citi said.

Reliance Industries closed 1.01 percent higher at Rs 1,209.35 while Bharti Airtel was down 1.04 percent at Rs 336.30 and Vodafone Idea fell 3.74 percent to Rs 4.89 on the BSE.―Money Control