Good morning. It is earnings season, and the results coming out of Indian boardrooms this week are telling a more interesting story than the headline index moves. Some companies are riding strong demand, others are getting squeezed by costs and currency, and the gap between the two is widening. Oil markets are also worth watching, with prices easing on hopes that a tense shipping route may reopen soon.
In today's newsletter: Airtel's profit jumps as your phone bill quietly climbs, Marico rides a rural demand rebound, and oil slides to a three-week low on Hormuz hopes.
Sensex 78,428.95 DOWN 210 pts |
Nifty 50 24,614.90 DOWN 159 pts |
USD/INR 95.32 STEADY |
Brent Crude $79.36 DOWN 5.3% |
Sensex and Nifty snapped a four-day winning streak as investors booked profits into a heavy earnings week, while Brent crude sank to its lowest in three weeks after Washington signalled a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could be close, easing pressure on India's oil import bill for now.
Bharti Airtel's profit jumps 37% as rising phone bills power a record quarter
Bharti Airtel's consolidated net profit rose 37.3 percent to ₹8,167 crore in the June quarter, as revenue climbed 18.4 percent to ₹58,539 crore. The engine behind the jump was not new customers so much as existing ones paying more, with average revenue per user rising to ₹264.
For subscribers, that number is the real story. Airtel's tariff hikes over the past two years have steadily pushed up what an ordinary Indian pays for a phone connection, and this quarter shows the strategy is still working even as Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea compete for the same customers. Consolidated EBITDA margin came in at 57.4 percent, with the India business alone at 60.1 percent, among the healthiest in the world for a telecom operator.
India's telecom market has effectively consolidated into a two-and-a-half player race, and with Vodafone Idea still fighting for survival, Airtel and Jio have far more room to raise prices than a genuinely competitive market would allow. Expect ARPU to keep climbing before it plateaus.
Airtel's total customer base, including its Africa operations, grew 12.5 percent to 680.9 million. Africa is quietly becoming as important to Airtel's growth story as India, even if it rarely makes the headline.
Parachute maker Marico's profit jumps 25% as rural demand comes back
Marico, the FMCG group behind Parachute coconut oil and Saffola, reported that consolidated net profit rose 25 percent to ₹630 crore in the April to June quarter, with revenue up 22.9 percent to ₹3,301 crore. The company credited strong volume growth across both its India and international businesses.
The result matters beyond Marico's own shareholders because FMCG volume growth is one of the clearer proxies for how ordinary households are spending. After several quarters of urban demand outpacing rural India, a strong showing from a company that sells low-priced staples like hair oil and edible oil across small towns and villages is a small but real signal that rural consumption is finding its feet again.
Oil slides to a three-week low as US, Iran and Oman edge toward a Hormuz deal
Brent crude settled at its lowest level in three weeks, falling around 5 percent, as optimism grew that Iran and Oman are close to an arrangement that would let commercial shipping move normally through the Strait of Hormuz again. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said a deal to reopen the strait could come within days, giving markets a reason to price out some of the risk premium that had built up over recent weeks.
For India, which imports the vast majority of its crude, a sustained fall in oil prices is one of the few genuinely good pieces of economic news available right now. It eases pressure on the rupee, the trade deficit and eventually retail fuel prices, though the relief could prove temporary if the Hormuz talks, which have collapsed before, break down again.
Breaking.exe
Breach costs hit record. The average cost of a data breach in India hit a record ₹25.5 crore this year, an IBM report found, a 15.9 percent jump from last year as phishing remains the most common way attackers get in. |
Palantir's blowout quarter. Palantir shares jumped nearly 30 percent after the AI software firm reported revenue up 93 percent to $1.94 billion and raised its full-year guidance, driven by demand for what it calls AI sovereign tools. |
Amazon crosses $3 trillion. Amazon's market value crossed $3 trillion for the first time after strong quarterly results driven by its cloud and AI businesses, even as founder Jeff Bezos filed to sell roughly $4.1 billion worth of shares. |
SpaceX's first report card. SpaceX posted its first earnings report since going public in June, with revenue of $7.81 billion beating estimates, though shares slid on capital spending that far exceeded what analysts had expected. |
Pangaea Revisited
Taiwan tensions simmer. The United States called China's coast guard patrols in waters east of Taiwan "deeply destabilizing", adding to friction over Beijing's growing use of grey-zone tactics to assert control near the island. |
Pakistan cuts fuel prices. Islamabad cut petrol prices by Rs 4.08 and diesel by Rs 2.45 a litre, passing on the recent drop in global crude prices to consumers already squeezed by a fragile economy. |
DR Congo's Ebola crisis grows. The Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has become the largest ever recorded in the country, with over 3,600 confirmed cases, as UN partners opened a major new 100-bed treatment centre this week. |
Also, Also, Also
ONGC's profit surges. State-run explorer ONGC's standalone net profit more than doubled to ₹17,034 crore, though its consolidated numbers were dragged down by a large loss at group refiner HPCL. |
BSE's record quarter. Exchange operator BSE's net profit jumped 62 percent to ₹873 crore on strong trading volumes and revenue growth. |
Aurobindo Pharma slips. Aurobindo Pharma's net profit fell 10 percent to ₹824 crore, hurt by weaker sales in its US and API businesses even as overall revenue rose. |