RCOM registers 0.3% y-o-y revenue growth

Reliance Communications (RCOM) has reported total turnover of INR55.41 billion (USD849.39 million) for its Q1 2016, ended 30 June 2015, a 0.3% improvement year-on-year, but down from INR57.03 billion in the previous quarter. Similarly, EBITDA was down quarter-on-quarter from INR19.76 billion to INR18.75 billion (+0.7% y-o-y) whilst net profit was INR1.77 billion compared to INR1.32 billion in the quarter ended 30 June 2014 and INR2.28 billion in the three months to end-March 2015. In operational terms, RCOM registered marginal subscriber growth with 111.1 million mobile voice customers – up from 110.7 million at end-March 2015 – and 35.4 million data users (33.7 million), of which 17.9 million were 3G subscribers (17.4 million). Despite the growing popularity of mobile data services, RCOM reported a drop in monthly ARPU to INR140 from INR147 in the three months to 31 March 2015, due largely to declines in voice usage and voice ARPU: voice usage fell from 330 minutes per subscriber per month to 316 minutes, whilst voice ARPU slumped to INR103 from INR110 three months earlier.