Idea Cellular Q4 net loss widens nearly 3-fold to Rs 930.6 cr

The company blamed hyper competition and high regulatory headwinds for aggravating the industry’s financial stress.

Idea Cellular on Saturday reported a nearly three-fold jump in its comprehensive loss at Rs 930.6 crore for the fourth quarter of 2017-18 compared to Rs 325.6 crore a year ago.

The operating revenue dropped 24.47 per cent to Rs 6,137.3 crore in the March quarter of FY18.

The loss for the full fiscal swelled to Rs 4,139.9 crore from Rs 404 crore in 2016-17. Revenue from operations came in at Rs 28,278.9 crore in 2017-18 from Rs 36,676.8 crore in the previous fiscal.

The company blamed hyper competition and high regulatory headwinds for aggravating the industry’s financial stress.

“The TRAI led regulation changes including reduction of domestic Mobile Termination Charge from 14 paisa to 6 paisa per minute and ‘International mobile termination’ settlement charges from 53 paisa to 30 paisa per minute further aggravated the financial stress for the existing industry operators,” Idea Cellular said in a post-earnings statement.

Giving an update on its merger with Vodafone, Idea Cellular said the process is in the final stages and is expected to be completed by June 2018.

“The merger of Idea and Vodafone India is in the final leg of regulatory approvals and is expected to complete in H1CY18,” it said.

Established operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular are in the midst of a bruising tariff war following the entry of Reliance Jio backed by India’s richest businessman Mukesh Ambani.

Reliance Jio’s free voice and dirt-cheap data offering have dented the financial metrics of incumbent operators, deepening the impact of regulatory decisions like cut in termination charges.