Helped by a one-time gain from sale of a non-core asset and improved operating income led Tata Communications, the telecommunications arm of the Tata Group nearly broke even posting a consolidated net loss of R5 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2013, a significant improvement from a net loss of R261 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.
The company during the quarter sold a land parcel and building in Chennai for a total of R192.3 crore, of which R183 crore was recorded as gain under exceptional item during the quarter.
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The income from operations of the company increased 11% to R4,400 crore against R3,961 crore in the three months of January to March last year. Global Voice Services (GVS) saw the total voice minutes advance to 15.4 billion from 15.2 billion minutes in the same quarter last year.
Global Data Services (GDS) revenues showed a growth of 8% at R1,746 crore supported by improved sales traction and increased pipeline activity.
The start-up business, comprising primarily of Neotel, posted a growth of 3% in revenues, and the start-up Ebitda margins stood at 7.4% during the quarter ? an improvement from 5.3% in the corresponding quarter last year.
For the full year ended March 31, 2013 also, the company narrowed its net loss to R623 crore against nearly R795 crore last year. The income from operations grew by a sharp 21% to R17,213 crore against R14,196 crore last year.
However, Ebitda margins of the company were down to 12% against 12.6% last year, on account of increase in spending on marketing, brand building and product innovation, Vinod Kumar, managing director and CEO told newspersons in a late evening conference call.
Around R41 crore of payments made to the Canadian Pension Fund, R27 crore in regulatory payments for UTL in Nepal and R18 crore of expenses related to cable cuts also impacted the margins, he said.
The company, which is reeling under a high debt also said that efforts are on to reduce the current debt of R8,500 crore through a mix of reduction in capex, ability to contain expenditure and look at opportunities to sell non-core assets as possible, said Sanjay Baweja, chief financial officer, Tata Communications. ?We have brought down the capex intensity to 10% of revenues from 35% earlier. We spent $3 million in the year gone by and would continue to spend in similar range or lower going forward,? Baweja said.
