Rcom rings in its Q3 numbers

Reliance Communication (Rcom) was a much anticipated Q3 performance and it grossly disappointed the marketmen. The stock which had closed on Friday at Rs.125.30, reacted to the numbers today, hitting an intra day low at Rs.121.05 and though recovered from this, it remains in the red, down over 2% at Rs.122 levels.

The company, for Q3Fy14, posted a 3% (YoY) jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs.108 crore though on a standalone basis, it posted net loss of Rs 694 crore v/s net profit of Rs 110 crore. EBITDA came in at Rs. 1,845 crore, up 11.6% while EBITDA margins were at 34.2%, which is amongst the highest in the industry, with strong contribution from both India and Global businesses.

RPM increased to 43.5 paisa, up 5.1% while Voice RPM has increased to 33.5 paisa, up 8.4%. ARPU was 11.6% at rs.125. The total data traffic up 85.2% y-o-y at 41,702 million MB. The traffic has increased due to increase in data subscribers and higher data usage per customer. The total data customer base has grown 31.2% y-o-y to 36.2 million including 11.1 million 3G customers in Q3. Its Q3 India Operations revenue rose 3.2% while its EBITDA was up 15% while its global revenues fell 8% and EBITDA dropped 7%.

During the quarter, the company fully repaid a syndicated external commercial borrowing (ECB) loan of $500 million or Rs 3,100 crore on schedule due date. The move will bring down net debt from Rs 41,500 crore as on September 30 to Rs 38,000 crore currently. Its interest outgo for the quarter was at Rs.749 crore, up from Rs.676 crore in Q2FY14. Its interest outgo for 9MFy14 was at Rs.2112 crore, up from Rs.1752 crore in 9MFy13. The good part is that it generated operational cash flow of Rs 1,845 crore in current Q3.