BackIdea Cellular net more than doubles to `468 crore
The telecom operator saw its consolidated revenue rise 18% in the third quarter to `6,613.06 crore
Premium
Mumbai: Idea Cellular Ltd, India’s third largest mobile phone service provider by revenue and market share, said its December quarter consolidated profit more than doubled from a year ago, following steady growth in voice minutes and “exponential data growth".
Net profit rose to ₹ 467.73 crore from ₹ 228.57 crore a year earlier, and 4.5% sequentially. The consolidated profit includes contribution of ₹ 69.6 crore from Indus Towers, according to the company’s management.
The telecom operator, a subsidiary of the Aditya Birla Group, saw its consolidated revenue rise 18% in the third quarter to ₹ 6,613.06 crore from a year ago and 3% over the preceding quarter.
A Bloomberg poll of analysts had pegged net profit at ₹ 511.8crore and sales at ₹ 6,627.5 crore.
The company, nearly one-fifth owned by Axiata, strengthened its revenue market share to 15.8%--an improvement of over 1% since last year, said the company while earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortization (Ebitda), an indicator of operating profitability, increased 37.7% from a year ago.
Free cash flow for the company improved by 44% from a year ago, according to Himanshu Kapania, managing director of Idea Cellular.
“We have reduced our net debt which is under ₹ 9,000 crore. Our battle for supremacy for data, what was witnessed on the voice front till a few years back, is now being witnessed on the data front. On a q-o-q (quarter-on-quarter) basis, our realized rate per minute has gone up 0.5% from 44.7 to 44.9," he said.
According to Ankita Somani, research analytst—telecom, Angel Broking Ltd, Idea Cellular reported “broadly in-line set of results".
Idea’s mobility segment’s revenue grew by 5% to ₹ 6,535 crore on the back of on back of 4% sequential growth in total Minutes of usage (MoU) to 145 billion minutes and 107.6% in data volume from a year ago, she added. ARPM (average revenue per minute) grew 0.4% sequentially to ₹ 0.45/min and, thus, Arpu (average revenue per user) grew 3% to ₹ 169 per month from the preceding quarter, said Somani.
The company clamped down on promotional minutes resulting in ARPM improvement. VAS (value-added services) contribution remained largely flat sequentially at 16.1% because of a steep decline in non-data VAS.
“The higher mobile data adoption has primarily led to VAS growth with data revenue as a percentage of service revenue improving from 3.8% to 9.5% in the last one year. Idea’s Ebitda margin slipped marginally by about 10 bps q-o-q to 31.1%, due to increase in marketing and subscriber acquisition costs," said Somani.
One basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.
Idea’s subscriber base increased by 1.6 million subscribers during the quarter with the end of period subscriber base standing at 128.7 million.
The result was announced after market hours.
On Monday, Idea Cellular’s stock price ended at ₹ 145.30 on BSE, down 4.72% from its previous close while India’s benchmark Sensex fell 2.02% to close at 20,707.45 points.
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
