RCom net profit up six-fold to Rs 675 crore in September quarter

Reliance Communications on Tuesday reported over six-fold jump in its net profit at Rs 675 crore (Rs 6.75 billion) for the quarter ended September 30, 2013.

The company had reported a net profit of Rs 102 crore (Rs 1.02 billion) in the corresponding period last financial year, the company said in a statement.

Total income from operations rose 6.55 per cent to Rs 5,361 crore (Rs 53.61 billion) for the reported quarter as compared to Rs 5,031 crore (Rs 50.31 billion) for the same period last year.

The company said the net profit includes Rs 441 crore (Rs 4.41 billion) from a write back provision.

"The company has, during the quarter, reassessed the requirement of maintaining balance of Rs 441 crore (Rs 4.41 billion) of provision for business restructuring created pursuant to the schemes of amalgamation approved by High Court in financial year 2006-07 and as determined by the board, credited to other income as no longer required," it said.

The employee cost of the company also declined to Rs 224 crore (Rs 2.24 billion) for the reported quarter as compared to Rs 344

crore in the same period last year.

The company said it remains free cash flow positive and this is expected to continue.

"Rcom generated operational cash flow of Rs 2,328 crore (Rs 23.28 billion) in Q2, paid net finance charges of Rs 676 crore (Rs 6.76 billion) and invested Rs 364 crore (Rs 3.64 billion) on capex during the quarter," the statement said.

Rcom said revenue per minute increased to 43.4 paisa, up 7.7 per cent year-on-year basis.

"We have significantly improved RPM with tariff hikes and strong focus on paid and profitable minutes," it said.

The average revenue per user of the company stood at Rs 120 crore (Rs 1.2 billion) in Q2.

The total data traffic was up 116 per cent y-o-y at 37,570 million MB.

The traffic has increased due to increase in data subscribers and higher data usage per customer.

"The total data customer base has grown 30.8 per cent y-o-y to 34 million including 9.1 million 3G customers in Q2," it said.

Shares of Rcom ended at Rs 129.15, down 5.18 per cent.