RCom profit up 5.8%

54-cr profit was posted for June quarter in FY17

Telecom operator Reliance Communications on Wednesday posted a 5.8 per cent rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 54 crore for the June quarter.

The Anil Ambani-led RCom, which on Wednesday agreed to merge its wireless telecom business with smaller rival Aircel to create the country’s fourth-biggest mobile phone operator, had posted a net profit of Rs 51 crore in the same period a year ago. The consolidated total income from operations declined 4.7 per cent to Rs 5,259 crore in the reported quarter from Rs 5,521 crore in the year-ago period.

“Results for quarter impacted by migration of CDMA customers to 4G LTE (fourth generation). RCom 4G LTE services now fully operational across India ,” RCom said.

The revenue from Indian operation was  Rs 4,693 crore, down 2.5 per cent from Rs 4,812 crore. The global operations segment registered Rs 1,185-crore revenue, up 5.3 per cent, from Rs 1,125 crore in the same period of 2015-16. The firm said its revenue per minute from phone calls increased by 1.6 per cent on a year-on-year basis, while total minutes of usage declined by 4.8 per cent to 10,000 during the period.

RCom said that its revenue per user increased by 5.7 per cent to Rs 148.

"The total data customer base has grown 9.9 per cent Y-o-Y to 38.9 million including 25.4 million 3G and 4G customers in first quarter," the statement said.

The total data traffic at 102 billion MB is up 10.4 per cent Y-o-Y, it added.

The shares of RCom closed at Rs 51.05, up by 2.72 per cent on BSE.