Strong Airtel, Vodafone Idea data traffic growth drives record tower adds for Indus in Dec quarter: Report

Indus Towers recorded its highest-ever tower additions in the December quarter, FY21, propelled by surging data traffic growth by anchor tenants — Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi), analysts said.

They added that the advent of 5G services would prise open new business opportunities for Indus as the next-gen technology would entail expansion of tower networks and drive fiberisation.

Brokerage CLSA said “Indus had the highest-ever additions of 3,416 towers in the December quarter, taking its total base to 1,75,510”. It estimates the tower company’s Ebitda or `operating income’ growth to hit the 10% level by FY23 if the current momentum continues, which will be the highest among peers.

Indus Towers shares were marginally up 0.71% at Rs 247.05 during Wednesday early afternoon trade on BSE.

“Booming mobile data traffic is a surrogate for towers’ demand, and in the first nine months of FY21, Indus’ anchor tenants, Airtel and Vi saw a (combined) data traffic growth of 46% on-year and 8% on-quarter, adding 11,600 petabytes of data traffic, which was 23% higher than Reliance Jio, and ahead of our estimate,” CLSA said in a note to clients.

Following its recent merger with the erstwhile Bharti Infratel, Indus Towers is one of the world’s biggest telecom tower companies, in which UK’s Vodafone Group owns 28.12% while Bharti Airtel effectively controls a 41.73% stake. Private equity firm KKR and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board collectively own around 7% while the balance is held by public shareholders.

CLSA said the likelihood of a 5G spectrum auction in 2022 would signal new opportunities for Indus as the next-gen fast mobile broadband service would require increased density of base stations and fiberisation.

Brokerage UBS, though, cautioned of potential 10-11% downside risk to Indus’ revenue and Ebitda in case of “a partial Vi exit scenario and as much as 35-40% downside in a full exit scenario”.

It added that “despite some relief in the AGR case, Vi’s liquidity position remains challenging, with an estimated funding shortfall of Rs 34,000-35,000 crore over FY21-23, which would not be covered by the proposed Rs 15,000 crore fund raising that continues to get delayed”.

Loss-making Vi needs funds quickly to ramp up its 4G operations, arrest its continuing customer losses to rivals, Airtel and Jio, and clear statutory dues to the government. It has more than Rs 50,000 crore of AGR dues payable to the government over 10 annual instalments through March 31, 2031.