Moneycontrol Bureau
Idea Cellular's net profit slipped 13.1 percent to Rs 809.3 crore in September quarter from Rs 930.8 crore on a sequential basis. Both voice and data realisations were under pressure. During the quarter, its revenue slipped 1.2 percent to Rs 8689 crore against Rs 8798.3 crore in quarter-ago period. Overall, the result is inline with muted expectations.
According to a CNBC-TV18 poll, the telecom service provider was expected to report Q2FY16 net profit at Rs 814 crore, down 12.5 percent on a revenue of Rs 8735 crore (down 0.7 percent Q-o-Q).
During the quarter, its EBITDA was at Rs 3057 crore against Rs 3228.4 crore while margin was at 35.2 percemt from 36.7 percent quarter-on-quarter.
Volume dropped 3.2 percent at 189.5 billion minute in Q2 from 195.8 billion minute. The company says that with increasing proportion of rural subscribers and seasonal slowdown resulted in sharp contraction on sequential quarterly basis in the voice minutes of use.
"Due to reduction in mobile incoming IUC charges settlement rate from 20 paise to 14 paise per minute from March 1, 2015, reduction in national roaming call charges & SMS rate between 20-75 percent from May 01, 2015 and pressure on Mobile Data realised rate as the competition intensifies in mobile broadband, the industry revenue growth rate in first six months of FY16 is trending to low 6-6.5 percent against 10.3 percent growth rate in H1FY15," Idea says in a statment.
Declining for five straight quarters, voice revenue per minute was down 0.6 percent at 32.7 paise in Q2 against 32.9 paise in Q1.
Data realisations fell for three straight quarters. Data RPM was down 4.9 percent at 23.4 paise from 24.6 paise.
"Idea clocked 2.63 crore net subscriber VLR addition between October 2014 to September 2015, against 2.09 crore addition in the same periodprevious year. The net mobile data customer base (2G+3G) has risen by 0.42 crore to 4.13 crpre million with 24.8 percent of overall Idea subscriber base using Idea 2G or 3G platform to access internet," a company statement says.
It is going to rollout its 4G services across 10 telecom service areas over 750 large & small towns by first half of 2016. The company plans to introduce from next financial year, Idea branded digital services applications like Idea Music, Idea Games, Idea Movies, Idea API & Idea Digital Wallets.Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Himanshu Kapania, MD, Idea Cellular says the margins have improved since the last two years and that he is optimistic about the company’s performance going forward.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
