Thaindian News

Mumbai, Aug 13 (IANS) Reliance Communications (R-COM) Friday reported a marginal rise in its revenues for the first quarter of 2010-11 at Rs.5,109 crore, against Rs.5,093 crore for the quarter ended March 31 but said its profits declined due to exchange variations.

The company, a part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambai Group (R-ADAG), said in a filing with stock exchanges that its profit after tax stood at Rs.251 crore for the quarter in review, against Rs.1,220 crore in the previous sequential quarter.

The earnings before tax, depreciation and amortisation was, nevertheless, 1.9 percent higher at Rs.1,632 crore, against Rs.1,602 crore during the quarters under review, said the company in its results, announced after the closing of the stock markets.

R-COM said its customer base stood at 111 million as on June 30, up 39 percent over 80 million on the corresponding date of the previous year, even as usage increased by 13.3 percent during the quarter to 94.4 billion minutes from 83.3 billion minutes.

During the April-June quarter, the company’s board approved a $11 billion deal to create what they described as the world’s largest independent telecom infrastructure entity, neither owned nor controlled by any telecom entity.

“This transformational deal will be implemented through a de-merger of Reliance Infratel’s tower assets into GTL Infrastructure,” said the company, adding 200,000 km of fibre optic cable network and related assets will remain with the group.

This apart, the company also decided to induct a strategic investor into the company for an up to 26 percent equity stake, but did not elaborate with which companies globally or in India the talks were proposed.

During the quarter, the company also acquired India’s leading cable TV service provider Digicable to have a combined subscriber base of 11 million to further integrate the company’s presence in the direct-to-home TV, broadband and voice services space.