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Reliance Communications Ltd, fourth-biggest mobile phone carrier by subscribers, saw quarterly profit miss estimates as it lagged bigger rivals in the number of customers using its data services, and made lesser money from individual users.
The company, controlled by billionaire Anil Ambani, said its total net profit in the second quarter rose to Rs 156 crore, from Rs 153 crore it earned last year.
Analysts, on average, were expecting a profit of Rs 184 crore, as per Thomson Reuters data.
For the quarter ended Sept. 30, RCom said it had 37.2 million customers who used its connection to surf the Internet, compared to 51 million at Bharti Airtel, India's top telecom carrier.
Telecoms companies in India are leaning heavily towards data subscriptions to spur growth, as call rates get cheaper, making it tougher to keep margins up.
For the September quarter, average revenue per customer, a key measure for telecoms companies, came in at Rs 138 for RCom, while Bharti Airtel's average revenue per user stood at Rs 193.
Total revenue at RCom, which agreed to buy Russian conglomerate Sistema's Indian mobile phone business earlier this week, came in at Rs 5,324 crore. Last year, the company's revenue was Rs 5,287 crore.
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