Sekhar told CNBC-TV18, "The new investors can start accumulating Bharti Airtel but clearly with a longer term perspective and some more downside in the stock price as well as on the tariff front is not ruled out. The positive out of all this which I see is that this entire tariff war has gained momentum and it is happening sooner than what was expected. So what it will eventually do is; stronger players like Bharti, Vodafone, Idea and Reliance will emerge out of this that much quicker because the competition and the newer entrants will be that much more under pressure and the incumbents will only get stronger."
He further added, "At the current valuations going forward this year and FY11 it would be a pleasant surprise if Bharti profits remain at the level that they recorded in FY09 that is somewhere around Rs 9,000 crore, so even if they record around Rs 9,000 crore we are confident that going forward with 3G coming in and the mobile penetration increasing and the minutes of usage also increasing although not in the same proportion as the cut in the tariff rates you will eventually see that in the next 2-3 years profits will steadily start growing again along with revenues and that will be the time when the valuation upsides will start kicking in because we should at the end of the day appreciate that it's a consumer facing business and since the older incumbents are generating about 25% returns on equity on these businesses. So it will not fizzle, so investors can start accumulating but clearly with a longer term perspective."