Stock to Watch: Idea Slumps Over 4% on Q4 Results

Indore, India, April 29, 2016 (Newswire.com) - Idea Cellular shares slumped over 4 per cent in early trade on Friday after the company posted 39 per cent decline in its March quarter profit.

At 9.54 am, share price of the company was trading 3.20 per cent down at Rs 122.50. The scrip opened at Rs 122.50 and has touched a high and low of Rs 124.90 and Rs 121.40 respectively, in trade so far. Sensex was trading 141.14 points up during the same time.

On NSE Nifty the scrip was trading 3 per cent down at Rs 122.70 at 9.54 am. Nifty was trading 38.40 points up at 7,885.65.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 941.77 crore in the January-March quarter of 2014-15 financial year.

Revenue of the company, however, increased by 12.6 per cent to Rs 9,483.85 crore during the reported quarter, compared to Rs 8,422.51 crore in the same period of 2014-15.

Idea reported voice realised rate of 33.3 paise per minute compared to 33.9 paise a minute it registered in same quarter a year ago. The realisation of revenue from data service declined to 22.9 paise per megabyte from 44.8 paise per MB during quarter under review.

With addition of 4G services, the company recorded mobile data consumption at 82.2 billion MB in the fourth quarter of financial year 2016 and 298 billion MB throughout the fiscal on its network. Idea, along with Bharti Airtel and Vodafone’s India unit have been heavily spending on ramping up 4G networks in anticipation of Reliance Industries 4G telecom service launch later this year.

According to brokerage house, CLSA company’s voice traffic and data traffic growth missed estimates. The voice traffic grew 9 per cent year-on-year, whereas data traffic grew 51 per year-on-year.

CLSA estimates Idea will still have to spend $2 billion for 3G/4G coverage, which will further add to interest costs and debt, and increase net debt to EBITDA ratio to 3.4x in FY17.

Source: http://www.freestocktipsindia.com