Idea Cellular posts standalone net loss of Rs 617 crore in Q1

Idea Cellular posted a net loss of Rs 617 crore for the first quarter (April-June) 2017-18, a company statement said here on Thursday.

"The upheaval in the Indian wireless industry continued in Q1 FY18, despite the new entrant slowly migrating from ‘free services' to ‘paid services' but with heavily discounted unlimited voice and data pricing plans," the company statement said.

"Amidst this market aggression, existing operators including Idea also introduced similar competitive unlimited price plans, which is likely to result in decline of industry revenues, although the impact of the same is expected to be more pronounced on non-4G operators," the company said.

"These aggressive tariff offerings by Idea, led by unlimited voice and data bundled plans, resulted in steep decline of voice and mobile data realisation rates. However, for the company, the fall in realisation rates was largely compensated by a substantial volume growth in both mobile voice and data segments," it added.