Idea Cellular Q1 net jumps 32% to Rs 234 cr
Idea Cellular, India's third-largest mobile phone carrier by revenue, said its quarterly net profit increased 32.2 percent to Rs 2.34 billion for its fiscal first quarter ended June, from 1.77 billion rupees reported a year earlier.
Analysts on average had expected the company to report a net profit of 3.01 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Idea said that due to introduction of ‘Telecom Consumer Protection Regulation’ by TRAI and grim market battle for supremacy, Idea’s strong revenue performance of last two quarters has slowed down on sequential quarterly basis to only 2.5% revenue growth. The above is primarily due to slide in ‘Average Realisation Per Minute’(ARPM) by 2.3% to 41.2p in comparison to 42.2p in Q4FY12, suggesting the industry growth is likely to be muted in the first half of this financial year. The annual revenue growth for the company is 21.6% on standalone basis (Q1FY13 vs Q1FY12).
The long term business outlook for the company remains positive, with growing consumer affinity for brand Idea, now serving 117 million subscribers. The minutes’ growth is stable @5.3% generating 131 billion minutes compared to 124 billion minutes in Q4FY12, strengthening Idea’s minutes’ market share. This volume expansion was supported by 3.1 million VLR subscriber additions during the quarter.
Over the last one year, the absolute EBITDA for the company on a standalone basis has grown by 20.8% to Rs. 12,889 million from Rs. 10,666 million in Q1FY12.
“With technology cycles becoming shorter, we have revised the useful life of certain fixed assets during the quarter, thereby increasing the depreciation charge by Rs. 480 million. Also the impact of sharp currency depreciation is reflected in interest and finance cost with a forex loss of Rs. 245 million in this quarter compared to a forex gain of Rs.135 million in Q4FY12”, the company said in a statement.
Overall, the above has translated in standalone PAT at Rs. 1,981 million for the quarter, almost flat compared to last quarter PAT of Rs. 2,016 million.
“Despite these challenges, the company is happy to improve last two quarters trend of Free Cash Flow (after Capex). This quarter Idea has generated Cash Profit of Rs. 10,502 mn, providing the company a strong hedge to respond to any uncertain regulatory interventions”, it said.
Idea said that it has strengthened its competitive standing to 15% Revenue Market Share (RMS) in Q4FY12, an astounding improvement of 1.4% during last one year.
Idea continues to extend its MNP leadership with cumulative net gain of 3.5 mn customers (as on July 10, 2012) from other operators. The company’s active 3G subscriber base has now expanded to 3.1 million, while it traversing its journey to extend high speed broadband coverage and introducing new exciting range of Idea branded smart phones. The company remains committed to grow share of ‘Non-Voice Revenue’ which now contributes to 14.5% of total
