Idea Cellular has reported 41.3 million mobile data subscriptions for the quarter ended September 30, 2015. In the preceding quarter, the telco had 37.2 million data subscribers showing a growth of 11.02% sequentially. The company registered a blended mobile data ARPU (average revenue per user) of Rs 144, a growth of 21% from Rs 119 in the same quarter last year. However, on a quarter-on-quarter basis mobile data ARPU fell 2.04% from Rs 147. Note that Idea Cellular had changed its mobile data subscriber definition in Q4 FY15, and has eliminated from its reporting incidental data users of less than 10 Mb/month. Idea Cellular had started culling incidental data users from Q3-FY14 and it had previously defined it as users who have consumed less than 1 MB/month. The total 3G subscription base stood at 19.58 million at the end of Q2 FY16 growing at 86.51% 90% from 10.52 million subscribers from the same period last year. The telco’s 3G subscription base was at 16.66 million in the preceding quarter, an addition of 2.92 million customers. Idea’s net profit after tax was Rs 809.3 crore in the first quarter, compared with Rs 755.9 crore in the same period a year earlier, growing a mere 7.06%. To give some context, Idea's net profit was up 27.83% in the preceding quarter and up 60% Q4FY15. Idea attributed the fall in net profit to reduced voice minutes of use (down 3.2% y-o-y to 189 billion minutes), lower interconnect charges, reduction in national roaming call charges & SMS rate and increased pressure on data margins. Data as a percentage revenue stood at…
