NEW DELHI: Idea Cellular on Monday announced that it has recorded a consolidated profit after tax (PAT) during the quarter ended June 30, 2018 at Rs 256.5 crore, compared to a consolidated loss of Rs 814.9 crore during the same period last year.
This is the company’s first profit posted in more than a year, with the sale of its tower assets pushing it into profitability.
The company received a one-time gain of Rs 3,364.5 crore from the sale of its tower business to American Tower Corporation.
However, the company registered a consolidated loss of Rs 2,757.6 crore before tax and exceptional items (including the proceeds from the sale) were accounted for during the quarter. Consolidated revenue from services also declined by around 28 per cent to Rs 5,866.4 crore from Rs 8,166.5 crore in the year-ago period mainly due to a dip in its mobile services business, which plunged around 28 per cent to Rs 5,745.3 crore from Rs 7,972.8 crore during the period.
“The increasing adoption of unlimited voice and bundled data plans continued to drive significant volume consumption of mobile voice and broadband data. The quarterly voice minutes grew at a staggering rate of 39.4 per cent. monthly voice consumption (per user) has risen exponentially to 609 minutes from 441 minutes per months in Q1 FY18,” the firm added.