RCom's Q3 profit up 2.7% at Rs 108 cr

Reliance Communications today reported a 2.7 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 108 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2013.
The Mumbai-headquartered company had posted a net profit of Rs 105 crore in the year-ago period.
Revenues in the the period under review rose by 2 per cent to 5,403 crore from Rs 5,301 crore in the same quarter of 2012-13, the company said in BSE filing.
Revenue from India operations grew by 3.2 per cent to Rs 4,667 crore.
Global operations revenue, however, declined 8.3 per cent to Rs 1,090 crore in December quarter from Rs 1,188 crore in the corresponding period of the last year.

Company shares closed 1.1 per cent lower at Rs 125.3 apiece on BSE.

Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) was up by 11.6 per cent at Rs 125 in the October-December quarter, while minutes of usage fell 1.8 per cent to 101.9 billion.
Voice revenues per minute (RPM) rose 8.4 per cent to 33.5 paise.
"We have significantly improved RPM with tariff hikes and strong focus on paid and profitable minutes," RCom said.
The total data traffic was up 85.2 per cent at 41,702 million MB. The traffic has increased due to increase in the number of subscribers and higher data usage per customer.

The company, which claims to have the largest 3G customer base in India, said its total data customer base grew 31.2 per cent y-o-y to 36.2 million, including 11.1 million 3G customers in the December quarter.
"RCOM generated operational cash flow (EBITDA) of Rs 1,845 crore in Q3, paid net finance charges of Rs 749 crore and invested Rs 327 crore on capex during the quarter. It remains free cash flow (FCF) positive and this is expected to continue," the company said.
On stand-alone basis, the company posted a net loss of Rs 694 crore in October-December of this fiscal.

It had posted a net profit of Rs 110 crore in the year ago period.
Total income fell by 7.7 per cent to Rs 2,785 crore from Rs 3,016 crore in the quarter under review.