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The first quarter of the current fiscal has turned out to be a mixed bag for frontline telecommunication companies.
Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Communications (RCom) has reported a 33.3 per cent fall in net profit for the first quarter ended June 30, 2013.
Net profit for the period stood at Rs 108 crore as against Rs 162 crore recorded in the same quarter a year ago. Revenues for the quarter were flat at Rs 5,315 crore (Rs 5,264 crore). Revenue per minute (RPM) increased by four per cent sequentially to 45.7 paise. Further, RCom said it has maximum number (in comparison with peers) of third generation or 3G users at 7.7 million.
“The key highlight of the quarter is the continuous growth in wireless business. This is the third consecutive quarter of wireless growth for the company,” RCom President and Chief Executive Officer (Wireless Business) Gurdeep Singh said.
GSM operator Idea Cellular posted a 97.6 per cent rise in consolidated net profit for the first quarter ended June 30, 2013, with an increase in voice and data revenues.
The Aditya Birla group company’s net profit rose to Rs 462.7 crore compared with Rs 234.1 crore in the same quarter a year ago. Its revenues went up by 18.8 per cent to Rs 6,538.7 crore (Rs 5,503.6 crore).
“The multiple drivers for the net profit were the growth in voice and data revenues, coupled with better cost management and arresting of churn (subscriber moving to another operator),” Idea Cellular Managing Director Himanshu Kapania said, adding its overall subscriber acquisition and marketing costs have fallen by about 3.8 per cent during the quarter.
Idea Cellular’s voice minutes also rose by 12.5 per cent on a year-on-year basis to 147.3 billion minutes, supported by an addition of 7.8 million new customers on an annualised basis. Its total subscriber base rose to 125 million as of June 30.
The company also registered an increase in data customers to about 30.9 million, of which 5.5 million were 3G users, he added.
Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd, which straddles both CDMA and GSM technology, pared net losses for the quarter ended June 30, 2013 to Rs 126.89 crore from Rs 162.66 crore.
The company’s revenues grew 4.2 per cent to Rs 687.74 crore (Rs 659.73 crore) according to details available on the BSE. The Tata group company’s value added services and data revenues accounted for 39 per cent of total wireless revenues.
> adith.charlie@thehindu.co.in
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