Telecom firms see ARPM drop in Q3

Telecom companies saw their average revenue per minute (ARPM) dropping on back of cut in outgoing call rates in the third quarter of FY2010.

Minutes of Usage (MoU) per subscriber continued to fall in Q3.

Quicktakes

During Q3, Uninor launched operations in eight circles, Sing Tel in three circles

MoUs decline sequentially despite sharp tariff cuts

Bharti's ARPM for the quarter declined by 7.8% QoQ and 19.5% YoY to Rs 0.52

Total wireless network minutes growth for Idea superior than delivered by Bharti
Continued increase in network operation expenses poses downside risk to margins
Q4 will see the full impact of tariff cuts

Bharti launched the Freedom Plan (per-second billing) only on October 30

RCom consol. revenues and EBITDA were down 7% and 10% QoQ, respectively

RCom EBITDA lowest in the last 11 quarters

Non-operating income inflated RCom's EBITDA by roughly 10-15%
RCom depreciation declined by 8% QoQ, despite significant GSM capex




Source & Full Article BoombergUTV