RComm net profit up 154% to Rs1024 cr

CORPORATE SCORECARD

Reliance Communications, the country's second largest private telephony company, today announced 154 per cent growth in net profit to Rs 1,024.41 crore on a consolidated basis for the fourth quarter of the financial year ended March 31, 2007, compared with the corresponding previous period, riding on huge addition of new customers in the world's fastest growing wireless market.

During the period, the company's total income rose 37 per cent to Rs 3,936.91 crore. The company has declared a 10 per cent maiden dividend, becoming the first telecom company to declare a payout.

Compared with this, the country's largest private telecom company Bharti Airtel's net profit rose 98 per cent to Rs 1,353 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2007. Its total revenues stood at Rs 5,393 crore for the fourth quarter, rising 59 per cent over the corresponding year-ago quarter.

Bharti's average revenue per user (ARPU) fell by around 5 per cent to Rs 406 this quarter from Rs 427 in the third quarter of 2006-07. Compared with this, Reliance Communications ARPU was steady during the year at Rs 377, though in the fourth quarter it slipped a little to Rs 372. Bharti hasn't paid any dividends since its shares started trading in 2002.

Addressing a press conference, Reliance Communications Chairman Anil Ambani today said the company recorded allround growth and better margins, deriving leverage from the growing scale of operations, in the last financial year which was its first year of operations after listing with the stock exchanges.

For the year ended 2006-07, the company posted 612 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 3,163 crore (Rs 444 crore) on a 34 per cent rise in total income of Rs 14,468 crore (Rs 10,766 crore). EBITDA stood at Rs 5,720 crore, recording 126 per cent growth. EBITDA margins rose to 40 per cent from 24 per cent, with the company registering continued expansion in profitability across all businesses"" personal, global and enterprise.