Reliance Communications (RCom) has witnessed a fairly stable quarter with respect to key parameters in its mobile business.

Though average revenues per user (ARPU) has slipped, it was made up by increase in minutes of usage, stable realisations and also operating margins on a per minute basis.

But its global business (global enterprise and broadband) has had a decline in revenues.

During the June quarter, while revenues for the company declined by 3.3 percent over the same period last year to Rs 4940.1 crore, net profits fell 37.6 per cent to 157.4 crore.

As with its peers such as Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone, RCom too reduced the pace of subscriber additions to make its base more lucrative.

Compared to the three million plus connections that the company used to add every month, this quarter witnessed only a little over 2.5 million a month.

Parameters stable

RCom witnessed a slight decrease in its ARPU to Rs 103, which is still higher than the CDMA industry average. But realisations per minute, at 44 paisa, have been stable, even as minutes of usage in the network rose 3 percent. The operating profit per minute, at a little over 12 paisa, too has been steady.

With 3G services launched and also tariff hikes announced recently, this segment looks more settled.

But revenues from its global business have declined 8 percent over last year. Interest expense for the quarter, at Rs 405 crore has risen by 7.9 per cent sequentially, thus denting profits.

Even the ‘others' segment, comprising RCom's DTH and retailing businesses among others, has witnessed a significant fall in revenues.

The company would be hoping to unlock value by sale of its tower business and shore up the much needed cash to reduce the debt on its books.

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