SSTL Q4 net loss widens to Rs 481.4 cr

Sistema Shyam Teleservices, which operates mobile services under MTS brand, today reported widening of its net loss to Rs 481.4 crore during the fourth quarter ended December 31, mainly due to currency fluctuation.
"The forex loss on year-on-year basis was about Rs 110 crore. This is not in our control," SSTL Chief Financial Officer Sergey Savchenko said.
The company had posted net loss of Rs 445.5 crore in the October-December quarter of 2013.
SSTL's CEO Dmitry Shukov said: "During the quarter (October-December, 2014), our non-voice revenues grew by 11.5 per cent, thereby contributing 47 per cent of the total revenues, the highest in the industry. One of the key reasons for improvement in our data revenues was due to expansion of our HSD (high speed data) services across all our 9 circles."

SSTL made investments of Rs 139.8 crore during the quarter and its debt from banks and financial institutions stood at Rs 3,827 crore.
The company reported narrowing of the loss in OIBDA (Operating Income before Depreciation and Amortization) terms by about 25 per cent at Rs 156.7 crore during the quarter, compared to Rs 208.1 crore in the year ago period.

The revenue of the company, however, increased by about 17 per cent to Rs 350.8 crore in the reported quarter due to demand for its mobile internet services compared to Rs 299.6 crore it posted in October-December 2013 period.

"Revenue in fourth quarter 2014 increased by 17 per cent year-on-year to Rs 3,508 million, the improvement is driven largely by increase in data revenues," Shukov said.
The annual net loss of the company narrowed by about 39 per cent to Rs 1,638 crore at the end of December 31, 2014 from Rs 2,694.2 crore it posted at the end of 2013.
The annual revenue of the SSTL rose by about 10 per cent Rs 1,347.2 crore at end of 2014 from Rs 1,227 crore in 2013.
The increase in mobile internet usage also reflected in companies average revenue per user which was up by 4.2 per cent to Rs 122.

Blended mobile ARPU for the quarter increased by 4.2 per cent to Rs 122 on account of increase in data usage.
The company's data card subscriber base for the quarter increased by 10.3 per cent to 1.6 million subscribers.
SSTL's mobile subscriber base was 9 million customers as of December 31, 2014, slightly down from the previous three months.
Shukov said: "Given the success of spectrum auctions, we now look forward to the government to bring out a clear roadmap on spectrum sharing and trading. All such steps are bound to boost broadband penetration in the country.