Reliance Communications Q2 profit up 2%; misses estimate

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Reliance Communications Ltd, the fourth-largest mobile telephony operator by subscribers, missed quarterly profit estimates.

The fall in profit mainly came from fewer customers using data services compared to the bigger rivals.

The total net profit of Reliance Communications in the second quarter rose to Rs 156 crore, from Rs 153 crore it earned last year.

Analysts, on average, were expecting a profit of Rs 184 crore, as per Thomson Reuters data.

For the quarter ended September 30, RCom said it had 37.2 million customers who used its connection to surf the Internet, compared to 51 million at Bharti Airtel, India’s top telecom carrier.

Telecoms companies in India are leaning heavily towards data subscriptions to spur growth, as call rates get cheaper, making it tougher to keep margins up.

For the September quarter, average revenue per customer for Reliance Communications was Rs 138 compared to Rs 193 of Bharti Airtel.

Total revenue at RCom, which agreed to buy Russian conglomerate Sistema’s Indian mobile phone business earlier this week, came in at Rs 53.24 billion. Last year, the company’s revenue was Rs 52.87 billion.