Promising Bharti
Many newspapers today have headlined Bharti’s inking yesterday of deal with retail behemoth Wal-Mart. The left parties object to Wal-Mart’s supposedly ‘backdoor’ entry to the Indian retail scene, but perhaps there is little they can do other than lodging protests.
Bharti has an uncanny ability to tie up with global majors for its different ventures that speaks of management’s open-minded approach to the businesses it is involved in. Take the UK-based Vodafone for example.
It is the world’s largest mobile network operator that agreed to buy 10% stake in Bharti in October 2005 for $1.5 billion. Bharti dearly needed this money to expand its network. The Vodafone deal was sweet for it because the UK giant announced a grant of $12 million to Bharti Foundation for the growth of primary education throughout the country.
Later when the turn came for Vodafone to take control of Hutch, the ‘gentlemanly’ equation between it and Bharti again came into display. 2 months back Vodafone quietly agreed to hand back 5.6% stake to Bharti for $1.6 billion.
There are other examples as well. When Bharti decided to enter retail sector it reportedly first roped in UK’s Tesco, the world’s third largest grocery retailer. Then Wal-Mart entered the scene and Bharti very amicably parted ways with Tesco to partner with Wal-Mart, the result of which is the deal between the 2 yesterday.
But why only Vodafone and Wal-Mart? In a development couple of days back less widely reported but one that is expected to have a big ramification in coming days, Bharti has tied up with search giant Google for broadband service.
It is recently (Aug 2) reported by Reuters in The New York Times that Google is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in its cell phone project for which it is tying up with US and UK telecom majors. According to the report Vodafone too figures in the list though perhaps no formal agreement has been reached so far.
I’ve been of late doing financial analyses of various GPS stocks on US bourses for a US-based web publication. These companies provide satellite based navigation information that can be sourced via web applications like Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps and MapQuest.
In US and Europe cars fitted with GPS devices use these information to offer virtual roadmaps that effortlessly guide people to their destinations.
One GPS stock I’ve written on, Navteq, has come out with spectacular results in the last quarter (Q2/06-07) on the back of record sale of their GPS maps. This has ensued re-rating of these stocks on the bourses.
With that in perspective and because of the likely move by cell phone makers like Nokia to soon come out with feature-rich handsets, there is every chance that the markets of digital maps and location-based-content-services both on fixed and portable devices will explode in near future.
Bharti’s importance comes here. It is already investing $100 million for what it calls a Service Delivery Platform (SDP) that will distribute a clutch of contents through multiple channels like SMS, MMS, WAP and web. Living up to its reputation, the SDP too is being built, and later is to be managed by IBM, another global biggie.
Interestingly, unlike RComm, Bharti is said to be planning to hive off its tower business. This means Bharti will concentrate more on supplying high quality contents.
Overall, one feels the Bharti stock presents a good investment option. Savvy analysts opine that the market hasn’t kept up with the pace of change in India’s telecom sector. When that happens won’t the select telecom stocks like Bharti see a spike in their prices?
Bharti has an uncanny ability to tie up with global majors for its different ventures that speaks of management’s open-minded approach to the businesses it is involved in. Take the UK-based Vodafone for example.
It is the world’s largest mobile network operator that agreed to buy 10% stake in Bharti in October 2005 for $1.5 billion. Bharti dearly needed this money to expand its network. The Vodafone deal was sweet for it because the UK giant announced a grant of $12 million to Bharti Foundation for the growth of primary education throughout the country.
Later when the turn came for Vodafone to take control of Hutch, the ‘gentlemanly’ equation between it and Bharti again came into display. 2 months back Vodafone quietly agreed to hand back 5.6% stake to Bharti for $1.6 billion.
There are other examples as well. When Bharti decided to enter retail sector it reportedly first roped in UK’s Tesco, the world’s third largest grocery retailer. Then Wal-Mart entered the scene and Bharti very amicably parted ways with Tesco to partner with Wal-Mart, the result of which is the deal between the 2 yesterday.
But why only Vodafone and Wal-Mart? In a development couple of days back less widely reported but one that is expected to have a big ramification in coming days, Bharti has tied up with search giant Google for broadband service.
It is recently (Aug 2) reported by Reuters in The New York Times that Google is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in its cell phone project for which it is tying up with US and UK telecom majors. According to the report Vodafone too figures in the list though perhaps no formal agreement has been reached so far.
I’ve been of late doing financial analyses of various GPS stocks on US bourses for a US-based web publication. These companies provide satellite based navigation information that can be sourced via web applications like Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps and MapQuest.
In US and Europe cars fitted with GPS devices use these information to offer virtual roadmaps that effortlessly guide people to their destinations.
One GPS stock I’ve written on, Navteq, has come out with spectacular results in the last quarter (Q2/06-07) on the back of record sale of their GPS maps. This has ensued re-rating of these stocks on the bourses.
With that in perspective and because of the likely move by cell phone makers like Nokia to soon come out with feature-rich handsets, there is every chance that the markets of digital maps and location-based-content-services both on fixed and portable devices will explode in near future.
Bharti’s importance comes here. It is already investing $100 million for what it calls a Service Delivery Platform (SDP) that will distribute a clutch of contents through multiple channels like SMS, MMS, WAP and web. Living up to its reputation, the SDP too is being built, and later is to be managed by IBM, another global biggie.
Interestingly, unlike RComm, Bharti is said to be planning to hive off its tower business. This means Bharti will concentrate more on supplying high quality contents.
Overall, one feels the Bharti stock presents a good investment option. Savvy analysts opine that the market hasn’t kept up with the pace of change in India’s telecom sector. When that happens won’t the select telecom stocks like Bharti see a spike in their prices?
Labels: Investment
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