Moody’s Investors Service has assigned a Baa3 issuer rating to Bharti Airtel and its 2023 notes issued by Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) BV under an irrevocable guarantee by Bharti. This is the first time Moody’s has assigned ratings to Bharti. The outlook on the ratings is stable.
Bharti’s Baa3 rating is underpinned by its receipt of strong and growing cash flows from its Indian operations, particularly in wireless, where it enjoys a well-established and leading market position under the Airtel brand.
Airtel is India’s largest telecom company with 192.22 million subscribers as of August-end. The company had a market capitalisation of Rs 1.28 lakh crore as on October 1, 2013 and it owns seven operational data centres across the country. Out of them, two are in Noida, one each in Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Bhubaneswar and Mumbai.
