RCom Q2 net profit plunges 80% to Rs 39 crore

Telecom operator Reliance Communications on Monday posted a dip of 80 per cent in its consolidated net profit at Rs 39 crore in the second quarter ended September 30, 2016 due to pressure on margin and higher finance cost.

The company registered a net profit of Rs 195 crore in the same period a year ago.

"Results for quarter impacted by increase in competitive intensity, migration of CDMA customers to 4G LTE and seasonality factors," RCom said in a statement.

Finance cost of the company increased by 15 per cent to Rs 825 crore from Rs 717 crore during the period under review.

Total income of RCom declined by 4.33 per cent to Rs 5,100 crore in the reported quarter from Rs 5,331 in the corresponding period of 2015-16.

RCom's India operations revenue declined by 4.7 per cent to Rs 4,488 crore from Rs 4,711 crore during the period under review. Revenues from global operations, however, increased marginally to Rs 1,089 crore from Rs 1,060 crore a year ago.

RCom said that its revenue per minute during the quarter declined by 1 per cent to 44.6 paisa compared to previous quarter. The company reported decline in minutes of usage of its network by 2 per cent to 97.9 billion but 5 per cent increase in average revenue per user at Rs 155 compared to April-June 2016 period.

The company said that at the end of the reported quarter, its data customer base stood at 3.5 crore which include 2.45 crore 3G and 4G customers. RCom said total data traffic on its network increased by 8 per cent to 10,480 crore megabyte on year-on-year basis.

Shares of RCom closed at Rs 41.85 a unit, down by 4.01 per cent compared to previous close, on Friday at BSE.