Idea Q4 Net soars 91% to Rs 590cr on call & data volume growth

A healthy jump in call and data volumes and over 8 per cent growth in average revenue per user (ARPU) helped telecom operator Idea Cellular to clock a robust 91 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 589.8 crore in the March quarter of the last fiscal.
On a sequential basis, the fourth largest telcom firm posted a standalone net profit of Rs 513.8 crore, a rise of 29 per cent over Rs 398.1 crore in the December quarter.
"We are witnessing healthy growth in minutes which was an area of concern for the market, but we are happy to report that minutes have gone by 8.6 per cent on a sequential basis, while data volume grew 31 per cent," Idea Chief Executive Himanshu Kapania told reporters here this evening.

The ARPU, which had been declining for a long period, went up to Rs 170 in the year (FY14) as against Rs 157 last fiscal, an increase of 8.3 per cent.
However, the Aditya Birla Group company witnessed a 2.8 per cent decline in average revenue per minute (ARPM) to 43.6 paise from 44.9 paise a year ago.
Kapania said the company will be investing up to Rs 3,500 crore in the current fiscal to build network and launch 3G service in Delhi by next year.

"The capex guidance for FY 2015 stands at Rs 3,500 crore, excluding any spectrum related payments," he said, adding the company has a board approval to raise Rs 3,000 crore through a QIP route over the next 12 months.

For the full-year (FY 2014), consolidated net jumped 94.65 per cent at Rs 1,967.8 crore.
The total consolidated revenue in the fourth quarter ended March 31 rose 16.2 per cent to Rs 7,043.8 crore from Rs 6,061.4 crore a year.
On a quarterly basis, it registered growth of 6.5 per cent in total revenue over Rs 6,613.1 crore posted in Q3.
Idea clocked 17.7 million net subscribers on VLR (visitor location register) basis in FY14, up from 14.9 million in FY13. As of March 31, the company had 137.9 million subscribers. Consolidated revenue grew 18 per cent to Rs 26,518.9 crore in the year ended March.

Kapania said the contribution of value-added services in the year grew to 16.2 per cent from 15 per cent last year. The company also saw a dip in subscriber churn in FY14.
"The intensity of competition has come down and that is reflected in the reduced subscriber churn. In FY 2013, we had a subscriber churn of 7.8 per cent and it went down to 5 per cent in FY 2014," he said.