NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Shares in India’s leading listed telecoms companies continue to reel after being hit hard in 2009 as a price war dents margins and clouds future earnings growth.

Top mobile operator Bharti Airtel <BRTI.BO> and rival Reliance Communications <RLCM.BO> were the only 30-share BSE index <.BSESN> stocks to fall in 2009, while the index rose 81 percent. The two have slid further this year, but slower than the broader market’s drop.

Bharti trades at just under 13 times forward earnings, higher than Reliance’s 9 times, but much lower than 5th-ranked Idea Cellular’s <IDEA.BO> 23 times. China Mobile <0941.HK> trades at 11.4 times forward earnings and SingTel <STEL.SI> at about 12 times, according to StarMine, a Thomson Reuters company.

DIALLING UP PROFITS

NEW DELHI, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Shares in India’s leading listed telecoms companies continue to reel after being hit hard in 2009 as a price war dents margins and clouds future earnings growth.

Top mobile operator Bharti Airtel <BRTI.BO> and rival Reliance Communications <RLCM.BO> were the only 30-share BSE index <.BSESN> stocks to fall in 2009, while the index rose 81 percent. The two have slid further this year, but slower than the broader market’s drop.

Bharti trades at just under 13 times forward earnings, higher than Reliance’s 9 times, but much lower than 5th-ranked Idea Cellular’s <IDEA.BO> 23 times. China Mobile <0941.HK> trades at 11.4 times forward earnings and SingTel <STEL.SI> at about 12 times, according to StarMine, a Thomson Reuters company.

DIALLING UP PROFITS

NEW DELHI, Feb 4 (Reuters) – India’s software and services exports in the year to March 2011 will be less than earlier expected as the sector’s growth has not been cranked-up enough by the recovering global economy, an industry body said on Thursday.

The National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) projected export revenue to grow 13-15 percent to $56-$57 billion, below the previous outlook for $60-$62 billion.

“It’s been impacted obviously by the impact of recession everybody is going through,” Nasscom Chairman Pramod Bhasin told reporters. “The economic environment will take another two to three quarters to stabilise.”

The growth rate in the current year to March would be 5.5 percent to $49.7 billion, within the 4-7 percent expansion projected earlier, Nasscom said.

NEW DELHI/HONG KONG (Reuters) – More than a month after putting its biggest global assets up for sale, India’s Reliance Communications <RLCM.BO> has found few callers for a package that includes its prized FLAG undersea cable network.

Sources close to the deal said Reliance Comm had already extended an initial deadline of late-January for submissions once, but had still attracted little interest for the deal seeking $3 billion.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

One source said Singapore Technologies Telemedia – which owns stakes in Singapore’s StarHub <STAR.SI> and undersea cable operator Global Crossing <GLBC.O> — is contemplating a bid.

NEW DELHI/HONG KONG, Feb 2 (Reuters) – More than a month after putting its biggest global assets up for sale, India’s Reliance Communications <RLCM.BO> has found few callers for a package that includes its prized FLAG undersea cable network.

Sources close to the deal said Reliance Comm had already extended an initial deadline of late-January for submissions once, but had still attracted little interest for the deal seeking $3 billion.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

One source said Singapore Technologies Telemedia – which owns stakes in Singapore’s StarHub <STAR.SI> and undersea cable operator Global Crossing <GLBC.O> — is contemplating a bid.

NEW DELHI, Jan 30 (Reuters) – Reliance Communications <RLCM.BO> reported a 21 percent drop in quarterly profit as hefty declines in call charges hit India’s No. 2 mobile operator, but the profit fall was smaller than expected helped by forex gains and lower costs.

“The results are better than the market was expecting but the challenges of over capacity and price war are going to be there for two quarters at least,” said Gajendra Nagpal, CEO of brokerage Unicon Financial.

“Only a consolidation in the sector would help and from a long-term perspective, one should be bullish on the telecoms space,” he said.

Reliance, which has been more aggressive than larger rival Bharti Airtel <BRTI.BO> in slashing phone call tariffs, was confident of withstanding high competition, Chairman Anil Ambani said in a statement.

NEW DELHI, Jan 30 (Reuters) – Reliance Communications <RLCM.BO> reported a 21 percent drop in quarterly profit as hefty declines in call charges hit India’s No. 2 mobile operator, but the profit fall was smaller than expected helped by forex gains and lower costs.

“The results are better than the market was expecting but the challenges of over capacity and price war are going to be there for two quarters at least,” said Gajendra Nagpal, CEO of brokerage Unicon Financial.

“Only a consolidation in the sector would help and from a long-term perspective, one should be bullish on the telecoms space,” he said.

Reliance, which has been more aggressive than larger rival Bharti Airtel <BRTI.BO> in slashing phone call tariffs, was confident of withstanding high competition, Chairman Anil Ambani said in a statement.

NEW DELHI, Jan 22 (Reuters) – India’s top mobile operator Bharti Airtel <BRTI.BO> will struggle to improve earnings as an intense price war and the entry of global players overshadows subscriber growth in the world’s fastest growing market.

The company, 30-percent owned by SingTel <STEL.SI> reported its slowest profit growth in more than three years, highlighting the deep pockets telecom companies need in a market forecast to double to 1 billion users by 2014.

The entry of operators including Japan’s NTT DoCoMo <9437.T> and Russian Sistema <SSAq.L> has pummeled call rates to as low as 0.7 U.S. cents per minute in a 13-operator industry signing up over 14 million users each month.

“The war for market share in the Indian telecom industry has only begun and its only going to intensify as more players enter the market,” Rakesh Rawal, head of private wealth management at Anand Rathi Financial Services, said on Friday. “The companies will have to take a hit in terms of reduced level of profitability because of the price war. This is not going to abate in the near future,” said Rawal, who advises his clients to “keep-off” telecom stocks.

NEW DELHI, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Diversified Indian firm Jaiprakash Associates <JAIA.BO> reported a 39 percent fall in quarterly profit on one-time employee cost, but sales more than doubled and it forecast strong growth for the full year.

The country’s biggest builder of dams and a maker of cement and homes is riding a revival in construction as Asia’s third-largest economy expands at a faster pace than the previous year.

“The company has done better than our expectation,” said Shailesh Kanani, a Mumbai-based analyst with Angel Securities.

“Engineering and construction business is doing very well. Cement capacity has been expanded. They have done well even in the real estate business selling as much as Unitech <UNTE.BO> did in the past nine months,” he said.

NEW DELHI, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Swiss cement major Holcim <HOLN.VX> aims to spend $1.1 billion to expand capacity in India and has no plans to bid for Cimpor <CPR.LS>, Portugal’s largest cement producer at the centre of two rival bids by Brazilian firms, a senior Holcim official said on Thursday.

“No plan, absolutely no plan,” Paul Hugentobler, a member of Holcim’s executive committee, told reporters on the sidelines of an industry conference in the Indian capital, when asked whether Holcim was interested in Cimpor.

Brazil’s Grupo Camargo Correa on Wednesday offered to buy a minority stake in Cimpor and then merge its cement unit into the Portuguese firm, to trump a rival bid by Brazilian steelmaker CSN worth about $5.6 billion. [ID:nLDE60C1TU]

Analysts expect global cement majors to also bid for Cimpor to head off a new competitor and at a time when global cement prices are stable as demand gradually limps back from the beleaguered real estate industry.