Idea Cellular suffers Q2 loss of Rs 1,107 crore

The company -- which is headed for a merger with Vodafone India -- had reported a net profit of Rs 91.5 crore in the July-September quarter of the last fiscal.

"The operating environment for Indian mobile operators remained challenging with unrelenting pressure on pricing, introduction of Goods and Services Tax at 18 per cent (compared to service tax at 15 per cent) and need for large investments to support the exploding data demand," Idea said in a statement.

Although "seasonal industry slowdown" is in sync with the past trends, the September quarter impact on the company's subscribers and revenue loss was more pronounced as always given its higher share of rural subscribers, Idea said.

Its revenue from operations fell 19.72 per cent to Rs 7,465.5 crore in the July-September quarter of the current fiscal, from Rs 9,300.3 crore in the year-ago period.

Shares of Idea were trading 2.78 per cent down to Rs 94.35 a piece on BSE.

The company said its while broadband data usage nearly doubled, the rate realisation "continued its free fall" during the three months ended September. The voice realisation rate fell by 9.9 per cent over the June quarter, and mobile data realisation fell more sharply by 49.2 per cent.

The revenue per subscriber also fell by 6.6 per cent to Rs 132 as against Rs 141 in June quarter.

New Delhi: Vodafone India and Idea Cellular – which are slated to merge soon – have decided to sell their respective tower businesses in India to ATC Telecom Infrastructure for Rs 7,850 crore.

In a joint statement, the two companies said Idea will sell its entire holding in Idea Cellular Infrastructure Services Ltd (ICISL) while Vodafone will divest its business undertaking to ATC Infra.

The deal is expected to be completed by the first half of 2018.

The standalone tower businesses of Vodafone and Idea comprise a combined portfolio of nearly 20,000 towers.