Vodafone Essar expects enterprise business revenue to triple by 2016 (India)
A senior executive has stated that Vodafone Essar Ltd., the Indian telecom unit of UK’s Vodafone Group expects the contribution of enterprise business to its total revenue to triple by 2016.
According to Naveen Chopra, Director of the enterprise and carrier business, Vodafone Essar’s enterprise business, which provides voice and data-based services to large and small corporates, now, contributes to 8%-10% of its revenue. Vodafone will use its 3G bandwidth for last-mile connectivity in the enterprise business. They would like to see a disproportionate use of 3G by enterprise business.
Indian telco MTNL loses INR8.76 billion
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Due to the rise in the cost and fall in the revenue from basic and cellular services, state owned Indian telco Mahanagar Telephone Nagar limited posted a net loss of INR8.76 billion for its fiscal third quarter.
Total revenue at the company fell about 18% to INR9.19 billion from INR11.25 billion. 51% rise in the total cost from INR12.91 billion to INR19.49 billion has also been recorded while its non-operating income fell to INR1.01 billion from INR2.61 billion.
25% drop to INR7.46 billion from INR9.92 million has been found in the revenue from basic wire line telephony services. Besides, the cellular services also fell about 22% to INR1.66 billion in the latest third quarter.
Bharti remains top pick in Indian telecom sector
“Bharti Airtel (Formerly Bharti Televentures) is
India
‘s largest private sector provider of integrated telecom services, especially wireless. The wireless business accounts for nearly two-thirds of the company’s total revenue. The company is a market leader in wireless services and its wireless operations extend across all 23 domestic circles.”
Potential for margin expansion despite tariff pressures
“Bharti believes that wireless EBITDA margins could expand to ~39-40% over the long term, despite likely continued pressure on revenue per minute, rpm. In 1Q FY07A, Bharti’s wireless margin stood at 36.4%; we forecast margins at ~37% for FY07E and expect that margins will expand further to ~39% in longer term, as scale economies should overcome rpm pressures. Despite the growing cloud of mobile minutes, Bharti expects rpm to remain under pressure due to high competitive intensity in the market and also, some pass through of scale benefits by operators.”
New operator rollouts seem unlikely before end-2007
“Recent newsflow of more wireless operators seeking a pan-India footprint is a dampener from the standpoint of industry structure, but we think any threat to Bharti’s customer and profit leadership is distant. Also, we think any on-the-ground network rollout by new operators is unlikely to commence before end-CY07.”
Reiterate Buy, Bharti remains our top pick
“We forecast Bharti’s earnings to grow at a CAGR of ~48% over FY06A-08E driven primarily by ~61% growth in its wireless subscriber base. At a PE of ~16x Mar ’08 & EV/EBITDA of 9x FY08E, the stock is currently trading near the lower end of its one-year forward PE-band of 18-24x and EV/EBITDA band of ~10-13x. Bharti remains our top pick in the Indian telecom sector. Buy.”
Source- http://www.moneycontrol.com
Technorati : Bharti Airtel, EBITDA, GSM, India
Ice Rocket : Bharti Airtel, EBITDA, GSM, India
