Indian cellco Reliance Communications (RCOM) has booked consolidated revenue of INR53.612 billion (USD799.7 million) for the three months ended 30 June 2016, down 3.8% from INR55.704 billion in the corresponding period of 2015. EBITDA for the quarter, meanwhile was INR15.601 billion, a decrease of 17.7% year-on-year although net profit edged up from INR510 million to INR542 million. RCOM counted a total of 99.9 million voice customers at the end of June 2016, down from 111.1 million a year earlier. The cellco also reported a data user base of 38.9 million, of which 25.4 million were 3G or 4G customers, up from 35.4 million and 17.9 million respectively in June 2015. 4G subscriber growth was aided by the operator’s migration of customers from its legacy CDMA platform to new LTE networks, a process which the operator said it completed this quarter.
RCOM also noted that its consolidation of the wireless operations of Russian-owned Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL/MTS India) is now just awaiting approvals from the High Court and Department of Telecommunications (DoT). Meanwhile, the cellco announced earlier this week that it had signed an agreement with Maxis Communications Berhard (MCB), parent company of Aircel, to merge their respective mobile businesses.