08 Aug , 2025 By : Debdeep Gupta
Shares of Bharti Airtel are lower by over 2 percent in early trade on August 8, emerging as the top loser on Nifty 50 index following a large trade that saw nearly one percent of the company's equity change hands, worth Rs 12,563 crore.
A Source had reported a day before that Sunil Mittal-led promoter entity is looking at a part stake sale in the telecom major. "The transaction has been launched at a floor price of Rs 1,862 per share, which is at a 3.15% discount to the last closing price," one of the persons familiar with the development had said. Indian Continent Investment, a Sunil Mittal-led promoter group entity that has likely trimmed its stake, holds 2.47% stake in Bharti Airtel.
After the June quarter earnings, Morgan Stanley had maintained its 'equal-weight' on Airtel, with a price target of Rs 1,890 per share. CLSA had kept its 'outperform' rating with a target price of Rs 2,035 per share. Macquarie, too, had maintained 'outperform' rating with a price target of Rs 2,050 per share after the Q1FY26 results.
Bharti Airtel posted a robust free cashflow of Rs 14,500 crore and managed to trim net debt by Rs 13,000 crore sequentially to Rs 1.26 lakh crore in the June quarter. The telecom company is ramping up its fiber rollout from 1.6 million to 2.5 million home pass-ups per quarter, and is treating both FTTH and FWA under a single WiFi strategy. Airtel's ARPU rose to Rs 250, helped by a better subscriber mix and an extra day in the quarter.
Airtel's digital network across India and Africa now serve over 60 crore customers. "Africa reported solid performance with 6.7% growth in constant currency. India Mobile business recorded a sequential growth of 2.9%, driven by continued focus on portfolio premiumization...", Gopal Vittal, Vice Chairman and MD of Bharti Airtel had said after the earnings.
Over the last five years, Airtel has invested over Rs 1.6 trillion in expanding its digital infrastructure, and the company has said in the past that the capex will trend down in FY26, with a large part of the heavy lifting largely done. The data center capex is part of the overall capex to be incurred by the company and is on track with previous guidance of around Rs 5,000 crore spread over three years.
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