Moneycontrol Bureau
Idea Cellular has posted better-than-expected April-June quarter results with net profit at Rs 930.8 crore, down 1.25 percent from Rs 941.8 crore on a sequential basis.
Its consolidated revenue stood at Rs 8,798.3 crore. Idea has said that due to changes in the TRAI Interconnect (IUC) regulations (Amendmend XIth and XIIth) effective from March 01, 2015 primarily reducing mobile incoming IUC charges from 20 paise to 14 paise per minute the revenue figures for this quarter are not comparable to earlier quarters.
It added that gross revenue for Q1FY16 was negatively impacted by Rs 317 crore (compared to Q1FY15), due to IUC rate changes.
"Additionally, implementation of TRAI Roaming TTO (Sixtieth Amendment) effective from May 01, 2015 reducing the upper cap for national roaming voice call charges & SMS charges between 20 percent-75 percent and increase in service tax rate effective from June 01, 2015 from 12.36 percent to 14 percent have also impacted the financial results for this quarter," Idea says in a statement.
The telecom operator was expected to register a 3.9 percent sequential degrowth in first quarter profit at Rs 905 crore as per CNBC-TV18 poll. Revenue was seen rising 2.9 percent (15 percent year-on-year) to Rs 8,663 crore in the quarter ended June from Rs 8,422.5 crore in March quarter.
During the quarter, its average revenue per user (ARPU) was at Rs 182, up 1.7 percent versus Rs 179 (Q-o-Q) while voice revenue per minute declined for four straight quarters (down 11.3 percent in a year). EBITDA was at Rs 3228.4 crore in Q1 against Rs 3064.5 crore Q-o-Q.
The company says that 44 lakh active subscribers addition, expansion of voice minutes at 5.8 percent clocking 195.8 billion minutes on network and 15 percent mobile data (2G+3G) volume growth to 62.7 billion MB drove revenue in Q1 FY16.
The company says that 44 lakh active subscribers addition, expansion of voice minutes at 5.8 percent clocking 195.8 billion minutes on network and 15 percent mobile data (2G+3G) volume growth to 62.7 billion MB drove revenue in Q1 FY16.
Voice rate realisation remained under pressure and fell sharply by 11.2 percent to 32.9p/min, including the impact of TRAI regulation changes and increase in service tax rate. However, elasticity of demand compensated the rate decline with 18.5 percent minute growth in Q1FY16 vs Q1FY15. Due to mobile data growth the blended average realisation per Minute (ARPM) was lower by 1.3 percent to 44.5p/min in Q1FY16 from 45.1p/min (Q1FY15) and the non-voice revenue share increased to 26.1 percent this quarter (17.8 percent in Q1FY15).
Net mobile data customer base has risen in this quarter by 3.7 million to 37.2 million, with 22.9 percent of overall Idea subscriber base using Idea 2G or 3G platform to access internet.
Idea capex spend in Q1FY16 was Rs 1367.4 crore (excluding spectrum, Interest & exchange rate difference capitalisation).
The stock closed at Rs 182.30, down Rs 1.75, or 0.95 percent on the BSE.
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