Bharti Airtel share price closed higher today amid report that the Indian telco inked a Rs 7,500 crore deal with Finnish telecom gear maker Nokia under which latter would deploy 5G ready network across nine service areas in the country. Share of Bharti Airtel closed 3.49% Rs 18 higher at Rs 532.30 compared to the previous close of Rs 514.35 on BSE. Bharti Airtel stock has gained 9.37% in the last 3 sessions.
The stock was top gainer on Sensex in an otherwise falling market today. Share price of Bharti Airtel touched an intraday high of Rs 540.05 rising 5% on BSE. Market cap of the firm rose to Rs 2.90 lakh crore.
Bharti Airtel stock stands higher than its 5 day, 20 day, 50 day, 100 day and 200 day moving averages. Share price of Bharti Airtel has gained 60.77% during the last one year and risen 16.78% since the beginning of this year. In one month, the stock has gained 25%.
According to analysts' recommendations tracked by Reuters, 23 of 26 brokerages rate the stock "buy" or 'outperform', two "hold" and one "underperform".
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The stock hit its all-time high of Rs 568.60 on February 17 this year. The large cap stock hit its 52 week low of Rs 312.95 on May 9, 2019. Meanwhile, Sensex closed 2,002 points lower at 31,715 and Nifty declined 566 points to 9,293 today. The losses in the benchmark indices came after four consecutive sessions of gain. Sensex gained 2,388 points (7.63%) , Nifty rose 705 points (7.70%) last week.
Under the deal, Nokia will deploy 3 lakh base stations for 4G services which can be upgraded to 5G network once the spectrum is available for the next generation service.
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Bharti Airtel announced a multi-year agreement to deploy Nokia's Single Radio Access Network (SRAN) solution across nine circles in India, helping the telcos to enhance the network capacity of its networks, in particular 4G, and improve customer experience.
"The rollout, which will also lay the foundation for providing 5G connectivity in the future, will see approximately 3,00,000 radio units deployed across several spectrum bands, including 900 Mhz, 1800 Mhz, 2100 Mhz and 2300 Mhz, and is expected to be completed by 2022," Bharti Airtel said .
This is the first network expansion deal of the year and during the lockdown period, when demand for high speed data has increased by about 20 per cent at pan-India level.