Airtel has a superior spectrum holding portfolio to peers especially in the superior 900 MHz band. It is better placed to capture the data opportunity given its superior spectrum holding.
Airtel has more spectrum than peers, but that does not necessarily mean it has near adequate spectrum given likely data consumption on its network over the next 3-5 years. Relative superiority does not necessarily mean absolute spectrum sufficiency (for absolute stock performance). By 2020, Bharti will likely rack up more data usage than China Mobile today (almost 35% higher), for which its current spectrum holdings seem rather inadequate, in our view. Capex will escalate to compensate, but this can help only to an extent.
Higher spectrum holding assets, per se, do not necessarily lead to leading market shares and/or consistent market-share gains. Finally,
solid ground-level execution and asset (spectrum) optimization is just as important as asset (spectrum) availability, if not more so.
