Airtel, Jio to cut back on capex

BHARTI AIRTEL and Reliance Jio are set to further scale back their capital expenditure (capex) intensity as they near the completion of their respective 5G rollouts.

- URVI MALVANIA

Meanwhile, Vodafone Idea is increasing its capex deployment as it prepares for its commercial 5G launch.

The next major phase of capex investment for Jio and Airtel will likely hinge on network utilisation levels as consumer adoption of 5G gains traction, analysts said.

"We estimate Bharti's India mobile capex intensity (capex-to-sales ratio) to drop to approximately 18% in FY25 (estimated) and further to 14% in FY27E, down from a peak of 30% in FY24. For Jio, which had a higher capex intensity of about 50% in FY24, this is expected to decline to 16% in FY25E and further to 12% in FY27E," analysts at Axis Capital said.