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Idea Cellular announces unaudited results for the third quarter, FY 2013 revenues of Rs 5,614 crore, up 10.8 percent on Y-o-Y basis against Q3, FY2012 revenues of Rs 5,065 crore.
In-spite of regulatory interventions impacting ‘Subscriber Acquisition' & ‘Value Added Services' business model, Idea is pleased to report a sequential quarterly revenue growth of 5 percent.
The quarterly revenue growth is primarily led by expansion of voice minutes @5.2 percent to 132.2 billion minutes compared to 125.6 billion minutes in Q2, FY13, indicating consumer demand for voice telephony remains robust. The company clocked 2.9 million VLR subscriber additions in Q3, FY13 against 0.6 million additions in Q2,FY13, despite implementation of stricter verification norms.
Contrary to expectation, the ‘Average Realised Rate per Minute' (ARPM) fell this quarter to 41.1 paisa against 41.3 p/minute in Q2, FY13. The challenge on ARPM is on account of fall in the ‘Non-Voice Revenue' contribution to 14.6 percent, driven down 1 percent over the last quarter, by TRAI's new VAS regulation.
The standalone EBITDA was at Rs 1,317 crore compared to Rs 1,262 crore in the previous quarter. The EBITDA margin is marginally lower @23.5 percent on account of higher inflationary burden in ‘Network operating expense' led by full quarter impact of increased diesel price and larger outlay for ‘Advertising & Business Promotion' expense.
Adverse currency movement has resulted in forex loss of Rs 13.3 crore during the quarter against a forex gain of Rs 18 crore in Q2, reflected in increased interest and finance cost (net).
Idea maintained trend of Free Cash Flow (after capex but excluding spectrum payout). However, the PAT at Rs 191 crore and cash profit at Rs 111 crore for the quarter were lower compared to previous quarter primarily due to dividend payment received from Indus in Q2, FY13.
Idea continues to invest in long term value creators - launched 2,961 new sites (2G+3G), expanded optical fibre network to 71,600 km and strengthened network capacities in NLD, ILD, ISP, data services and devices.
Out of the existing 114 million subscriber base, the number of Idea customers adopting data services has exponentially grown to 21.75 million, now contributing 5.7 percent to service revenue. The data volume grew by 14.8 percent to 9,575 TB in Q3, FY13 (8,339 TB in Q2, FY13), while data revenue on sequential quarter basis grew by 10.8 percent. The active 3G subscriber base for the company now stands at 4.1 million.
Idea is confident to overcome the current uncertain regulatory phase, emerge competitively stronger as the overcapacity comes to an inevitable decline, consolidate its position in the telecom voice market and aggressively expand in the ever evolving wireless broadband business.