Despite Reliance Jio’s Onslaught, Bharti Airtel Maintains Expensive Tag

The entry of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. into the Indian telecom market may seem like setting a cat among pigeons, but that’s far from the reality.

In today’s chart of the day, we take a look at valuations of the country’s top telecom operator Bharti Airtel, and how it stacks up against global peers.

Bharti Airtel with a price to earnings multiple of 23.7 times is d as the second most expensive telecom company behind only London’s Vodafone Plc at 40.4 times.

This is much higher than China Mobile — the world’s largest telecom company by market cap — at 15.4 times. It is also higher than American telecom behemoths Verizon and AT&T, which have a forward PE multiple between 13 and 14.5 times.

The high valuation of Bharti Airtel is reflective of the stock’s return potential, which according to a Bloomberg consensus of analyst estimate, is highest among these telecom companies at 20.9 percent.