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Riding on a growth in both voice and data services, Idea Cellular has posted a 57.4 per cent rise in consolidated net profit at ₹728.2 crore for the first quarter ended June 30. The GSM operator has posted a net profit of ₹462.7 crore during the comparable quarter a year ago.
During the reporting period, the Aditya Birla Group company’s total revenues rose 15.6 per cent to ₹7,561 crore from ₹6,538.8 crore in the same period a year ago.
“This quarter Idea delivered balanced growth with sequential quarterly voice minutes expansion by 5.2 per cent and Average Realisation per Minute (ARPM) improvement of 3.3 per cent,” Idea Cellular Managing Director Himanshu Kapania said in a press conference.
On a sequential basis, the telecom service provider posted a 23.47 per cent rise in net profit at ₹589.8 crore on a total revenues of ₹7,043.8 crore.
The higher voice rate realisation and an 11.5 per cent rise in data contribution in service revenue helped improve ARPM by 1.5 paise from 43.6 paise in fourth quarter to 45.1 paise in the reporting quarter. The value-added services contribution has improved 17.8 per cent of overall service revenue.
During the quarter, the company carried 165.2 billion minutes on its network, registering a 12.2 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth. It carried 32.5 billion megabytes of mobile data on its 2G and 3G platforms, posting a YoY growth of 136 per cent.
“There is a significant demand for mobile voice in India… There is also a significant demand for future growth,” Kapania said.
Idea Cellular’s, which has about 139 million users, average revenue per user (ARPU) rose to ₹181 during the quarter from ₹173 in fourth quarter, and minutes of usage per subscriber rose to 401 minute (397 minute in Q4FY14).
Net debt pared The company has reduced its net debt by ₹5,208.7 crore to ₹13,976.9 crore as of June 30.
“This was mainly due to the ₹3,000-crore qualified institutional placement, while we got about ₹2,000 crore from operations. The debt will be further reduced with Idea Cellular issuing shares on a preferential basis to Axiata,” Akshaya Moondra, Chief Financial Officer at Idea Cellular, said.
Idea Cellular has earmarked a capex of ₹3,500 crore for the year, similar to that in the previous year.
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