Idea Cellular, India’s No. 4 operator by subscribers, reported 17% dip in consolidated net profit to $39.7 million from a year earlier for its third fiscal quarter ending Dec. 31.
The company posted a net profit on a standalone basis of $32.4 million for the quarter, compared with $44 million in the same period in the last financial year.
The company attributed the drop in the standalone profit after tax to higher depreciation & amortisation and interest & financing cost with regard to 3G investments; and higher provision for deferred tax.
The company’s gross revenues increased to $999.6 million, a 27% increase from the $786 million posted for the same quarter in the previous financial year.
Some of the other important highlights of the quarter are:
- The company’s 3G investment plans are on track and high-speed broadband services are now available across 2,300 towns in 20 service areas (including roaming arrangements) in India.
- The company said that it had more than 2.25 million active 3G users at the end of 2011. More than 5% of Idea’s 106 million users have subscribed to 3G services, the company’s managing director Himanshu Kapania said.
- Idea has improved its share of market revenues to 14% and extended its mobile number portability leadership with a net gain of 2.2 million customers (as on Jan. 14) from other operators.
- The company said that strong revenue growth is primarily led by a 7.3% sequential increase in minutes of use to 114 billion during the third quarter. The minutes volume expansion was supported by a 7.5 million net increase in VLR subscriber additions during the quarter compared with 3.2 million during the previous quarter.
- The average revenue per user increased from $3.08 during the second quarter to to $3.16 in the third quarter.
