The Hindu Business Line : RCom Q3 net surges 48% on wider subscriber base

Mumbai, Jan. 31 An expanded subscriber base and strong growth in the wireless business segment have propelled the country’s second largest telecom carrier, Reliance Communications Ltd, to register a 48.6 per cent rise in net profit for the third quarter ended December 2007.

The company’s net profit stood at Rs 1,373 crore against Rs 924 crore reported in the same quarter a year ago.

Net revenues were up 29.8 per cent to Rs 4,874 crore (Rs 3,755 crore).

The company has bettered market estimates on the bottom-line growth. However, both the top-line growth and the standalone numbers of the company were lower than expected, said an analyst.

On a standalone basis, Reliance Communications posted a 43.3 per cent dip in net profit after tax to Rs 436.4 crore against Rs 771.04 crore in the year-ago period. This was due to the sharp dip in average revenue per user (ARPU) to Rs 339 from Rs 361 in the previous sequential quarter and due to the investments made by the company on bettering its reach, a company spokesperson said.

However, wireless revenue per minute remained stable at 0.75 paise, as against an industry-wide trend of continuous decline. For Reliance Communications, the broadband business achieved maximum revenue growth of 44.4 per cent to Rs 456 crore (Rs 316 crore). This was partly due to the 70 per cent increase in the number of access lines to nine lakh at the end of the quarter, from 5.3 lakh in the corresponding quarter last year.

The company added 4.6 million wireless customers during the quarter, taking its wireless customer base to 41 million wireless customers.

The RCom scrip was down by 1.7 per cent to close at Rs 601.95 on the BSE.