Idea revenues expands 18.1% on the back of data growth

Idea Cellular has booked an 18.1% year-on-year increase in revenues to INR63.17 billion (USD1.03 billion) for the three months to end-September 2013, despite a 3.3% dip in turnover compared to the previous quarter. EBITDA for the cellco’s fiscal second quarter rose 38.2% on an annualised basis to INR17.43 billion, with an EBITDA margin of 27.6%, compared to 23.6% a year earlier and profit after tax increased by 13.2% to INR3.99 billion. Idea registered net additions of 2.2 million new wireless subscribers for the quarter, including 700,000 3G users, increasing its total customer base to 127.2 million, of which 6.2 million were on 3G subscriptions. Voice usage dropped sharply compared to the previous two quarters though, reaching 138.83 billion total minutes (with an average of 368 monthly minutes of use per customer) from 147.32 billion and 143.37 billion in Q1 2013/14 and Q4 2012/13 respectively. The slump was largely offset by an increase in data usage, however, which nearly doubled y-o-y from 8.74 billion MB to 17.45 billion MB, expanding 26.5% on a quarterly basis.