Idea Cellular posts Rs. 256.5 crore profit in Q1

India's third largest telecom operator Idea Cellular today posted a net profit of Rs 256. 5 crore for the quarter ended June 2018, while Average revenue per user declined to Rs 100 from Rs 105 in Q4 FY18.

Idea said that its VLR subscribers as on June 30, 2018, stands at 203.4 million with a market share of 20.9 percent (May 2018), an improvement of 1.4 percent compared to May 2017.

Similarly, broadband data usage per broadband data subscriber has risen sharply to the monthly usage of 8GB in Q1FY19, compared to 3GB per month a year back.

In Q1FY19, the broadband data volumes reached a record level of 992 billion MB, more than 4 times compared to mobile broadband data volumes a year back, the telco said.

Idea said "Indian mobile industry continued to decline under pressure from heavily discounted unlimited voice and bundled data plans & subsidized 4G feature phone offerings from one of the operator, forcing a commensurate response from other existing mobile operators to retain subscribers.

The sector presently offers 'Voice & Data' unlimited bundles at unsustainable below cost price levels impacting the financials of all incumbent operators. As existing customers continue to prefer lower value deep discounted unlimited voice and bundled data plans, the 'Average Revenue Per User' (ARPU) remained under pressure."

The company's wireless broadband subscriber (EoP) base now stands at 41 million, an addition of 14.6 million broadband data customers over last one year.

During the quarter, Idea also completed the rollout of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) services across 20 - 4G Telecom Circles.

Idea Cellular's revenue for the quarter declined to Rs 58,892 million in Q1 FY19, as against Rs 61,373 million in Q4 FY18 mainly on account of down trending of ARPU, representing a normalised decline of 2.9 percent QoQ, after adjusting for the impact of exclusion of one month tower revenue (on completion of sale transaction of Idea standalone towers to ATC on May 31, 2018) and full quarter impact of Trai directed International IUC rate reduction (vs 2 months impact in the last quarter).

The EBITDA for the quarter stands at Rs 6,595 million.

Furthermore, Idea informed that the key focus area for the merged team of Idea Cellular and Vodafone India would be to fast forward the substantial cost synergies with an estimated NPV of $10bn and rapidly expand the broadband coverage.