Highlights of the concall
- The company has recorded Rs 2936.49 crore consolidated revenue for Q4 FY09, 8% up Q-o-Q. The consolidated EBIDTA margins for Q4 FY09 improved 210 bps sequentially to 27.6%. At EBIDTA level, Spice and Indus have contributed Rs 69.4 crore for Q4 FY09. The consolidated PAT for the quarter stood at Rs 274.20 crore, up 25% Q-o-Q (which is depressed by Rs 29 crore on account of the Spice and Indus consolidation).
- The revenue of company from Mumbai and Bihar circles (relatively new circles) surged by 104% sequentially to Rs 98.5 crore while loss at EBIDTA level from these two circles has reduced sequentially to Rs 65.4 crore against Rs 76.5 crore in Q3 FY09.
- Idea, including service areas of Spice (Punjab and Karnataka), added 5.03 million subscribers during the quarter with total subscriber base reaching at 43.02 million at the end of 31st March 2009, reflecting a national market share of 11% (Flat on Q-o-Q).
- On Q-o-Q basis Idea’s standalone ARPU dipped by 4.5% to Rs 254 from Rs 266 and the average realized rate (ARR) per minute marginally slipped from Rs 0.64 in Q3 FY09 to Rs 0.63 in Q4 FY09. The average minutes of use per user has declined from 416 minutes in Q3 FY09 to 402 minutes in Q4 FY09.
- The ARPU of 2 circles of Spice has dipped from Rs 279 to Rs 267 sequentially while the average minutes of usage slipped from 494 minutes to 467 minutes sequentially. However, the average realized rate improved marginally from Rs 0.56 to 0.57 sequentially.
- As on 31st March 2009, Idea has about 44,230 cell sites (39,289 at the end of Dec’08) and 5630 cell sites (4848 at the end of Dec’08) on Spice’s network. Out of 44,230 cell sites the company has 7477 owned sites and 36,753 rented sites (21459 at end Dec’08). In case of Spice, out of 5630 sites, 5448 are rented sites and 182 owned sites.
- This increase of 15,294 cell sites includes 11,094 cell sites on Idea towers, transferred to Indus, through the IRU effective 1st January 2009. As of March’09, out of the 36,573 rented cell sites, 25,150 cell sites are on Indus Towers.
- The transfer of cell sites to Indus led to an increase in the network operating cost, and the rental income that Idea was deriving from guest sites also ceased w.e.f. 1st January 2009 – which resulted in EBITDA contraction by about 3.4% for the quarter. However, until the merger into Indus is consummated, Idea also received rental income for the transferred towers, equivalent to about 1.2% of the EBITDA. Therefore, the net negative EBITDA impact for the quarter was about 2.2%. This does not include Idea’s pro-rata share of Indus’ profit/loss.
- The merger of these towers with Indus will negatively impact IDEA on standalone basis by about 2.2% at EBIDTA and EBIT level.
- The company expects the benefits of Spice acquisition to kick in Q1 FY10 onwards as till now it was aligning the Spice’s operations with that of Idea.
- The company has launched its operations recently in Orissa circles in April 2009, thus increasing its presence to 16 circles (including 2 of Spice).
- The company is expected to launch services in Tamilnadu in Q1 FY10 and intends to have pan India operations by calendar year 2009.
- The total capex for FY09 was about Rs 5450 crore. For FY10 the company reiterated capex guidance of Rs 6000 crore (including capex for new circles but excluding for 3G licenses and roll out).