Telecom Lead India: Reliance Communications said its 3G subscriber base reached 7.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2013. Reliance is well ahead of Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular in terms of 3G subscribers.
Bharti Airtel’s 3G subscribers reached 6.4 million in the fourth quarter. Airtel earlier said data continues to lead the mobile segment growth in India, through deeper penetration and consumption.
Idea Cellular’s 3G subscriber base reached 5.1 million, while data ARPU rose to Rs 55.
Reliance Communications’ data customers touched 29.4 million during the fourth quarter.
Airtel’s data consumption continues to grow 20 percent every quarter and has reached 24 billion MBs in this quarter. Data now contributes around 6.5 percent of the total mobile revenues (against 5.7 percent in Q3 FY 2013). Bharti Airtel had 43.5 million Data (mobile internet) customers, of which 6.4 million used 3G data services.
Idea Cellular has improved non voice revenue to 15.2 percent from 14.6 percent in Q3 FY 2013 led by mobile data growth.
Both 3G and data consumption is important for Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel since they need to compete with Reliance Jio Infocomm when the company launched 4G this year.
Meanwhile, Reliance Communications’ Q4 revenue increased 12.3 percent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 5,956 crore from Rs 5,301 crore in Q3.
Net Profit of Reliance Communications increased 186.8 percent to Rs 303 crore.
Q4 wireless revenue rose 2.5 percent to Rs 4,626 crore. Wireless EBITDA at increased 2.3 percent to Rs 1,233 crore.
RPM stood at 44 paisa.
Global enterprise’s Q4 revenues reached Rs 2,466 crore, up 0.5 percent from Rs 2,454crore in Q3.
