Bharti Airtel share price surges 10% record high despite 5237 crore loss; Know why

It's quite surprising that the Airtel share price jumped 10% on Tuesday morning. On BSE Bharti Airtel share price has hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 594.55, the previous close was Rs 538.15.

Despite Bharti Airtel declared Rs 5,237 crore loss for Q4 late Monday. In the March quarter, Airtel has added 12.5 million 4G subscribers. Probably it's the tariff hikes that may have reflected in Jio's results with a gap.

In last few months in the country telecom companies raised calling and data plan charges after the Supreme Court endorsed a demand by the telecom companies that wireless carriers pay Rs 92,000 crore ($12.11 billion) in overdue tariffs and interest.

In the December quarter, Airtel posted a consolidated loss of Rs 1,035.3 crore, and in the March quarter of 2019, it declared a profit of Rs 107.2 crore. The amalgamated revenue for the quarter was Rs 23,723 crore, against Rs 21,947.1 crore in the December quarter and Rs 20,602.2 crore in March 2019.

As per the analysts, Airtel's India business performed really well with subscriber addition and strong Arpu (average revenue per user) growth rate in the 4G network. CLSA shared India mobile revenue came in ahead of estimates. Airtel, Africa is surprised positively. The strong Arpu growth also reports concerns about demand elasticity, at current price points.

"Airtel reported a 16 per cent sequential rise in data traffic at 6.5 billion GB (15GB per user). Bharti's data traffic is about one-third of RJio's with potentially 15-20 per cent lower capacity, highlighting better network experience and room for improvement," said Motilal Oswal Securities.

Motilal Oswal Securities says, "In March quarter, Reliance Jio reported 2 per cent Arpu increase to Rs 131, while Vodafone Idea is expected to see a 9 per cent ARPU increase to Rs 131."

Total usage of minutes on the network during the quarter was 902 billion, signifying a 13.3 per cent growth over 796 billion minutes in the last year corresponding quarter.