Idea Cellular Q4 loss widens three-fold to Rs 9.30 bn; revenue dips 24%

Idea Cellular on Saturday reported a nearly three-fold jump in its comprehensive loss at Rs 9.306 billion for the fourth quarter of 2017-18 compared to Rs 3.256 billion a year ago.

The operating revenue dropped 24.47 per cent to Rs 61.373 billion in the March quarter of FY18.

The loss for the full financial year swelled to Rs 41.3 billion from Rs 4.04 billion in 2016-17. Revenue from operations came in at Rs 282 billion in 2017-18 from Rs 366 billion in the previous financial year.

The company blamed hyper-competition and high regulatory headwinds for aggravating the industry's financial stress.

"The TRAI led regulation changes including reduction of domestic Mobile Termination Charge from 14 paisa to 6 paisa per minute and International mobile termination' settlement charges from 53 paisa to 30 paisa per minute further aggravated the financial stress for the existing industry operators," Idea Cellular said in a post-earnings statement.

Giving an update on its merger with Vodafone, Idea Cellular said the process is in the final stages and is expected to be completed by June 2018.

"The merger of Idea and Vodafone India is in the final leg of regulatory approvals and is expected to complete in H1CY18," it said.

Established operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular are in the midst of a bruising tariff war following the entry of Reliance Jio backed by India's richest businessman Mukesh Ambani.

Reliance Jio's free voice and dirt-cheap data offering have dented the financial metrics of incumbent operators, deepening the impact of regulatory decisions like cut in termination charges.