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Informist, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026

 

MUMBAI – Telecom stocks are seen stable in the near term. There are not many triggers to drive the stocks, with investors waiting for tariff hikes, for which the listing of Jio Platforms is seen as a major catalyst. The company is expected to list in the first half of 2026 but could even take longer given the complex nature of the process.

 

The earnings for the December quarter did not hold any surprises and were largely in line with estimates, according to an analyst with a large-sized retail firm. The tariff hikes are seen as a major trigger, especially for Bharti Airtel, making Jio's listing that much more important for the sector. In a post-earnings conference call, Anshuman Thakur, head of strategy at Reliance Jio Infocomm, said the company doesn't plan on tariff hikes in the near term and that it is happy with the 1% sequential increase in average revenue per user. Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani said Reliance Jio Infocomm will invest INR 10 trillion over the next seven years to power India's artificial intelligence transformation.

 

Vodafone Idea said it plans to invest INR 450 billion, of which INR 250 billion will be funded through debt from banks and INR 100 billion will be from a non-funded facility. The company said it had been witnessing positive response, including customer additions, from markets where it had invested to expand its network. As a result, the company saw revenue growth in 14 out of the 22 telecom circles. The company plans to focus on sustained subscriber addition, deliver double-digit revenue growth, and triple its current cash earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation.

 

Bharti Airtel has committed to ramp-up its investments in data centres to reach a capacity of 1 gigawatt over the next 3–4 years. Its current capacity is 120–130 megawatts. The rise in capacity is expected to increase the company's market share to 25% from about 12% currently. The company has also entered into a strategic partnership with Google to set up India's first artificial intelligence hub in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

 

The company said it has "three ports of call" regarding its avenues for capital expenditure, the first being data centres, second is the cloud platform, and third is the opportunities in the financial services sector. Bharti Airtel also plans to continue to allocate capital towards its Africa business, which the company believes has been "an excellent investment" and also sees significant synergistic opportunities between its India and Africa businesses. Despite the risk of currency volatility, the continent presents tremendous opportunity as it has a young population, low penetration, good pricing structure, and a sorted industry structure.

 

Vodafone Idea shares are expected to find support at INR 9.90 and major resistance is placed at INR 12.22. If the stock is able to sustain the INR 12.22 level, then it could see good rise with a target of INR 16 becoming visible, according to Rishabh Srivastav, technical analyst at Lakshmishree Investment and Securities. In the case of Bharti Airtel, the stock's resistance is placed at INR 2,050 and if it's able to sustain this level, the target of INR 2,200 becomes visible, Srivastav said. Support for the stock is at INR 1,930. The BSE Telecom index is expected to find support at 2950 points but the index looks good and can reach 3350 if it is able to sustain at the resistance level of 3180 points, the analyst said. The index ended at 3092.28 points on Friday.

 

TOP HEADLINES

* Tejas Networks receives INR 700 mln under production-linked incentive scheme
* Growing customer base, cost discipline now BSNL's strategy, says MD Ravi
* Bharti Airtel arm Airtel Money gets RBI nod for non-deposit taking NBFC
* HFCL, arm get order worth INR 609.50 mln to supply optical fibre cables
* HFCL gets orders worth INR 423.4 mln for supply of optical fibre cables
* RailTel Corp gets INR 929-mln order from Delhi govt Directorate Of Education
* ITI net loss narrows QoQ to INR 255.8 million in Oct-Dec

 

Following are the resistance and support levels for key telecom stocks for next week as per calculations based on their prices on the National Stock Exchange:

 

Company	Price	Week-on-week  change in %	Resistance	Support
Bharti Airtel	1,977.40	(-)1.40	2003.40	1958.00
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam	30.24	(-)3.80	30.80	29.90
Reliance Industries	1419.40	(-)0.00	1438.90	1396.30
Tata Communications	1686.70	1.80	1735.90	1622.10
Tata Teleservices Maharashtra	42.91	(-)1.50	43.70	41.90
Vodafone Idea	11.16	(-)1.20	11.50	10.90
Index	Levels
Nifty 50	25571.25	0.40	25822.00	25254.40
S&P BSE Sensex	82814.71	0.20	83643.50	81791.80

 

 

End

 

Reported by Akshat Saksena

Edited by Ashish Shirke

 

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