Idea Cellular MD Himanshu Kapania said on the company's Q1-FY15 earnings conference call that OTT apps like Viber have had some impact on their International calling business, but on regular voice calls, there is no impact yet. Kapania was responding to a question on the impact of OTT apps like Viber on the voice business. Idea reported 27.9 million mobile data subscriptions for the quarter ended June 30, 2014, registering a 10.5% growth from 25.26 million mobile data subscriptions in the previous quarter. Mobile Internet services are 8.7% of service revenue for the company. It reported a blended Data ARPU of Rs 55 per data connection, and Rs 116 of 3G data ARPU per 3G connection. 3G usage was Rs 429 per 3G connection during the quarter. More details here. Kapania believes that the impact on voice services will be negligible because of two reasons: firstly, India has the lowest voice calling rates in the world, and secondly, Mobile Internet penetration is only around 20%. "Globally, you are right, it has had an initial impact on SMS services, and how it has started to have an impact on voice services. The reason, in India, it is expected to have an impact that is far lower than what impact you see in Europe, is because India, currently is on 2G, and has the lowest rate. We are running at the rate of Rs 0.35 to 0.40 realised rate. And even as we speak, only 20% of consumers are using data, and 80% prefer to use…
