Brokerage firm, Credit Suisse has maintained ‘Underperform’ rating on Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular with a target price of Rs 330 per share and Rs 74 per share respectively.

Credit Suisse believes EBITDA (Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) of these companies would continue to decline. It also said that, “We expect divergence to continue in revenue and EBITDA”. Bharti Airtel was trading 0.52 per cent down at Rs 426.95 around 10.15 am (IST), while Idea Cellular was down 0.45 per cent at Rs 87.55 at around the same time. Benchmark BSE Sensex was down 58 points, or 0.19 per cent, at 31,587.

The telecom industry has been suffering under poor financial health, falling revenue and profitability and is staring at Rs 4.5 lakh crore of debt. For the quarter ended June 30, 2017, net profit of Bharti Airtel plunged 75 per cent to the lowest level in four-and-a-half years as its voice and data businesses continued to suffer from the price war triggered by Reliance Jio’s offerings. Bharti Airtel profit’s fell to Rs 367 crore in the three months ended June from Rs 1,462 crore a year earlier.

Idea Cellular posted a consolidated net loss of Rs 815.9 crore in Q1FY18 compared with a net profit of Rs 220.4 crore a year ago, and a loss of Rs 325.6 crore in the previous three-month period.

It would be interesting to watch how the other incumbents are able to bounce back and sustain the continuous offers from Jio.