Bharti Airtel
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Equity Research INDIA July 12, 2021 BSE Sensex: 52373 Bharti Airtel BUY ICICI Securities Limited is the author and Maintained distributor of this report Enterprise business - under-appreciated; unleashing digital opportunity Company update Rs530 In continuation to our deep diving into enterprise business (link), we are evaluating Telecom Bharti Airtel’s (Bharti) enterprise business housed under Airtel Business. Airtel Business is under-appreciated considering it is the most profitable business for Target price: Rs675 Bharti with ROIC of 35-40% in the past three years and EBITDA CAGR of 13% over FY17-21, which underpins our optimism for the business. Airtel Business will benefit from the shift to new sales model for tapping SME opportunity which is adopting Shareholding pattern digital solutions like never before. Considering SME buy-bundled services unlike Sep Dec Mar customised solutions by large enterprises, Airtel benefits from existing relationships ’20 ’20 ’21 Promoters 56.2 56.2 55.9 and launch of new digital platforms. Nxtra (data centre and cloud offerings) has grown Institutional >3x over FY18-20, and is likely to grow over >3x in next 3-4 years. Digital platforms investors 39.3 39.6 38.9 MFs and others 14.4 14.0 12.8 like Airtel IQ, Airtel Secure and Airtel IoT open doors in new-age digital solutions Insurance Cos. 5.6 5.8 5.9 which are growing fast >30-50%. We see a significant upside risk to our growth FIIs 19.3 19.8 20.2 Others 4.5 4.2 5.2 estimate of 6.5% CAGR for enterprise revenue (FY21-23E). Reiterate BUY on Bharti. Source: NSE Airtel Business is the most profitable business for Bharti. Airtel Business Price chart contributed 14% to consolidated revenue and 12% to EBITDA in FY21. Airtel Business revenue has grown at CAGR of 7.1% over FY17-21 to Rs144bn and EBITDA has grown 700 at 12.9% CAGR to Rs55bn. It has generated FCF (EBITDA minus capex) of Rs132bn in 600 past five years; in past three years ROIC has been 35-40%. Airtel Business offers 500 products and services including voice, data, collaboration, cloud, data centre, security, (Rs) IoT, network integration, managed services, and digital services. Airtel Business has 400 sub-sea cable network of 365k-Rkms, covering 50 countries. In the past two years, Airtel 300 Business’ market share has grown by 800bps to 31%, which establishes its prowess. 200 Company changing business model to capture huge SME opportunity. Airtel Business gets 80% revenue from 20% customers and it sees huge opportunities in Jul-18 Jul-19 Jul-20 Jul-21 Jan-19 Jan-20 Dec-20 farming and hunting. It has made changes in business model – 1) in-source SME sales force (earlier outsourced) which should improve SME sales channel; 2) building omni- channel digital capabilities for customer acquisition and servicing; 3) entered new areas including data centres, Airtel Secure, Airtel IQ, Airtel Cloud and Airtel IoT; and 4) revamped teams’ incentive structure with targets for hunting and farming. Strong presence in fast growing India market. Airtel Business’ revenue grew at CAGR of 6.5% compared to 0.6% CAGR revenue growth for TCom. Airtel Business India non-voice enterprise revenue can continue to grow faster on higher contribution from new segments of security, cloud and cloud communications. It is also a beneficiary of IoT adoption and rollout of private network by industries for automation. We see Airtel’s India non-voice enterprise revenue growing in mid-teens at least over the next few years. Market Cap Rs2909bn/US$39.1bn Year to Mar FY20 FY21 FY22E FY23E Reuters/Bloomberg BRTI.BO / BHARTI IN Revenue (Rs bn) 875 1,020 1,131 1,285 Shares Outstanding (mn) 5,492.0 Net Income (Rs bn) (56) (90) 74 123 52-week Range (Rs) 609/398 EPS (Rs) (10.3) (16.5) 13.6 22.6 Research Analyst: Free Float (%) 44.1 % Chg YoY 529.6 59.5 (182.3) 66.5 FII (%) 20.2 P/E (x) (9.1) (19.4) 39.6 23.8 Sanjesh Jain Daily Volume (US$/'000) 1,26,759 CEPS (Rs) 31.7 27.0 59.0 71.5 [email protected] +91 22 6637 7153 Absolute Return 3m (%) 1.4 EV/E (x) 10.3 11.1 9.1 7.8 Absolute Return 12m (%) (7.5) Dividend Yield (%) 0.4 0.4 1.0 2.1 Sensex Return 3m (%) 9.9 RoCE (%) 3.4 (19.2) 8.9 11.3 Sensex Return 12m (%) 44.6 RoE (%) (43.3) (21.8) 11.7 18.0 Please refer to important disclosures at the end of this report ICICI Securities Bharti Airtel, July 12, 2021 Cloud – betting big on data centres. Nxtra Data offers 1,98,000 sqft of data centre space in 10 data centres. Nxtra Data revenue has grown by 3.2x over FY18- 20 to Rs11bn; EBITDA has grown by 3x to Rs2.8bn. India data centre market is expected to grow 3x in next four years to 1,100-1,200MW. We expect Nxtra revenue to grow faster with the launch of more data centres and strong relationship with hyperscalers who are looking to expand presence in India. Further, Nxtra also offers public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud services and helps enterprises migrate to cloud architecture. Digital services – rising up in value chain which is likely to boost TAM. Airtel Business has also developed multiple platforms and services, which are adjacent to connectivity solutions and help the company grab a higher share of ICT spending by enterprises. The services launched by Airtel Business include: 1) Airtel IQ - a cloud communication platform for customer engagement through customers’ preferred channels - calls or SMS and mobile or web app using APIs and software tools. It is designed for easy adoption (plug and play) into any application using easy API. Airtel Business has gained good traction for the product with on-boarding of 50 customers including Swiggy, HDFC Bank etc. The opportunity for Airtel IQ is quite high with underlying market opportunity in India at US$1.6bn and growing fast. Airtel IQ total addressable market will increase once it is launched in other geographies; 2) Airtel Secure is multi-layered, full service cybersecurity offerings designed to safeguard enterprises against threats. It has partnerships with ~8 cybersecurity product companies which enables it to offer the entire suit of security services. India security market is estimated at US$700mn. Airtel Business has ~100 customers on Airtel Secure and the list is growing fast; and 3) Airtel IoT is an integrated platform offering end-to-end solutions powered by a variety of connectivity technologies. Airtel IoT has >7,000 active customers with >6mn IoT device deployments already. It is adding, on an average, >12k IoT devices per day, which is a testimony for demand for IoT services. India IoT market stands at US$1bn and is growing fast. Rising contribution from new-age solutions likely to drive higher valuations for enterprise business. We remain excited on enterprise business within telecom due to 1) rising investment by enterprises into new-age solutions driving higher total addressable market; 2) telcos have done reasonable investments in digital solutions for enterprise business (unlike B2C, which are captured largely by startups or technology companies); and 3) 5G may drive higher growth for connected devices which should augur well for telcos. Further, we like Bharti’s strategy to enter new services such as cloud communications, security and cloud which should help the company grow faster in next decade. We see these services commanding sales multiple compared to 11x EBITDA multiple assigned by us. The company also plans to house digital business in parent in new proposed structure which should help drive higher value. Data centre business in Bharti is under-appreciated, which has been growing fast and may continue to do so for the next few years. Carlyle has valued the business at US$1.2bn; we see value for this business growing fast as we see revenue from the segment rise by 3x in next few years. 2 Bharti Airtel, July 12, 2021 ICICI Securities How important are enterprise services for Bharti Airtel Bharti brands enterprise business as Airtel Business; it contributed 14% to consolidated revenue in FY21 and 12% to consolidated EBITDA. Airtel Business revenue has grown at a CAGR of 7.1% over FY17-21 to Rs144bn; EBITDA has grown at 12.9% CAGR to Rs55bn. Airtel Business has been relatively more resilient with consistent growth; it was not impacted as severely as mobile services from rise in competitive intensity. Customer stickiness, particularly for large corporates, has been much higher and low churn which has helped the segment grow. Chart 1: Airtel Business (enterprise) contributed 14% to Bharti’s consolidated revenue in FY21… FY21 revenue (Rs bn) Home services, 23 , 2% South Asia DTH, 31 , 3% mobile, 4 , 0% Enterprise, 144 , 14% India mobile, 556 , 53% Africa mobile, 291 , 28% Source: I-Sec research, Company Chart 2: …and 12% to consolidated EBITDA FY21 EBITDA (Rs bn) Home services, 13 , 3% South Asia DTH, 21 , 4% mobile, 0 , 0% Enterprise, 55 , 12% India mobile, 243 , 52% Africa mobile, 133 , 29% Source: I-Sec research, Company Airtel Business has generated FCF (defined as EBITDA minus capex) of Rs132bn in the past five years. It has remained stable despite rise in capex intensity in the past three years to average 17% from less than 10% in earlier two years. The company has been investing in building sub-sea fibre capacity and data centres. It has also added many new business segments along with traditional connectivity business.