Bharti Airtel Shares Extend Losses on Rs 60,000 Capex Plan

Bharti Airtel shares fell sharply on Tuesday to trade at the bottom of the Nifty-50 index. Having closed down 2.3 per cent on Monday, Bharti Airtel slumped nearly 4 per cent today.

The selloff in Bharti Airtel, India's biggest mobile carrier, comes on the back of the company's announcement to invest Rs 60,000 crore over three years to upgrade its network.
 

Bharti Airtel's CEO Gopal Vittal on Monday said the planned investment, to be raised largely through cash accruals, includes the capital expenditure target of about $2.2 billion for the current fiscal year to March 2016.

Airtel, which also competes with Vodafone Group PLC's India unit and Idea Cellular, will lay 550,000 kilometres of domestic and international fibre cable and expand mobile broadband coverage to 500,000 Indian villages in three years, from 250,000 today, Mr Vittal said.

However, analysts say Bharti Airtel's capex plans signal rising competition ahead of the launch of Reliane Jio's 4G broadband network.

Credit Suisse cut Bharti Airtel's earnings per share estimate by 6 per cent on the capex announcement. The brokerage has an "underperform" rating on the stock.

As of 1.25 p.m., Bharti Airtel shares traded 3.4 per cent lower at Rs 323 as compared to a 0.2 per cent rise in the broader Nifty.