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Uninor, the Indian subsidiary of Norwegian telecom service provider Telenor, today reported its operating loss at about Rs 148.08 crore (Norwegian Krone 143 million) during the July-September quarter, as compared to about Rs 555.06 crore (Norwegian Krone 536 million) in the corresponding quarter in 2012. But, if compared with the previous quarter, the company has reported a sharp rise in operating loss. Its operating loss stood at about Rs 110.9 crore (Norwegian Krone 107 million) in the April-June quarter this year.
The loss (year-on-year) was narrowed as the company had trimmed down operations from 13 circles in India to just six circles after all its licences were quashed by the Supreme Court order.
Uninor has, in September, said that the company has already achieved operating break-even in five of the six circles where it operates in India. It targets to report operating breakeven in all circles by December end.
The EBITDA loss was at Norwegian Krone 140 million (about Rs 145.4 crore) for the quarter, an improvement from Norwegian Krone 153 million (about Rs 154.4 crore) loss sequentially and a significant improvement from Norwegian Krone 408 million (Rs 381 crore) loss in the same quarter last year.
As part of its global results, Telenor reported Indian revenue at Rs 754.73 crore (Norwegian Krone 729 million) during the third quarter ended September 30, 2013, as compared to Rs 893.34 crore (Norwegian Krone 863 million) reported during the same quarter in 2012.
The company’s average revenue per user in India has increased during the quarter to about Rs 100 from Rs 97 in the previous quarter. It has 26 million subscribers in India, of which 1.5 million were added during the July-August quarter.
In November last year, the company had secured fresh licences for six telecom circles — Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh East, Uttar Pradesh West, Bihar, Gujarat and Maharashtra, in the recently closed auction of 1800 MHz spectrum.
Globally, Telenor has lowered its revenue guidance on weak figures in its key Danish and Norwegian markets. However, it increased investment forecast.
Globally, Telenor’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) during the July-September quarter rose 9%. “The revenue development in Norway is weaker than expected. In order to secure healthy returns on our high network investments, we need to further optimise data centric offers to stimulate demand for mobile data,” said Chief Executive Jon Fredrik Baksaas, in a statement.
“Based on the performance in the first three quarters and the outlook for the rest of the year, we revise the outlook for organic revenue growth to 1-2% and capex to sales to 13-14%. We maintain our guidance of around 34% EBITDA margin,” said Baksaas.
