Bharti Airtel shares hit 52-week high after BofA Securities upgrades stock

livemint.com:

₹1,069 on Wednesday's trading session, spurred by an upgrade from BofA Securities to a "neutral" rating. The accompanying increase in the target price was driven by anticipations of a forthcoming tariff hike. The broking firm raised the target price of the telecom major to ₹1,145, an upside of 7% from the current levels.

Analysts from BofA Securities anticipate a substantial increase in tariffs within the next 12 months, foreseeing potential benefits for Bharti Airtel. Also read: Motisons Jewellers shares hit 20% upper circuit for 2nd day in a row, up over 243% from IPO price; here's why "We estimate over 20 percent tariff hike in 2024. The capex cycle pick-up is expected as Bharti's capex is based on improving handset penetration.

We expect faster market share shift towards Bharti and Jio as 5G rollout scales up. However, the stock's valuations are not cheap at 9.4x FY25 proportionate EV/EBITDA," the brokerage firm said. The Airtek stock has gained over 19.30% in the last six months and surged over 38.99% in the last one year.

Analysts anticipate a subscriber growth of 3.6 million and a 1.1% sequential rise in average revenue per user (ARPU) during the October-December period. Also read: Cochin Shipyard share price spikes over 18% to 52-week high as stock trades ex-split “ For Q3, we have factored subscriber growth of 3.6 mn (Q2FY24: 4 mn) to 346mn coupled with ARPU increase of 1.1% QoQ to ₹205. Airtel Africa business is expected to see revenue growth of 4% QoQ, and we have factored in a 4% QoQ growth rate for the enterprise business.