Telenor India operating loss widens in the fourth quarter

Telenor India’s operating loss widened at NOK 368 million in the fourth quarter of 2015, compared with NOK 285 million a year earlier. The Norway-based telecom company’s India unit’s full year operating loss stood at NOK 990 million, against operating profit of NOK 882 in 2014. Telenor India’s revenue however increased at NOK 1436 million in the quarter, compared with NOK 1187 million a year earlier.

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“The mass market approach, effective distribution and efficient operations helped the company maintain its growth trajectory in 2015. The year closed with 16% higher subscriber base than last year and a revenue growth of 9.2% over last year along with EBITDA loss narrowing by almost 90% year-on-year,” Sharad Mehrotra, CEO, Telenor (India) Communications, said in a statement.

Telenor’s revenue from subscription and traffic stood at NOK 1234 million, while interconnect revenue reached NOK 191 million in India during the quarter The subscription base went up by 1.8 million during the quarter. At the end 2015, the subscription base was 16% higher than at the end of 2014, the company said.

Telenor has over 26.3% of its subscribers accessing Internet, which is a jump of nearly 39% over last year.
ARPU in local currency fell by 13% to Rs 88 primarily driven by lower voice consumption and the impact from reduced mobile termination rate, partly compensated by increased data usage. EBITDA before other items stood at NOKA 41 million in the quarter, compared negative EBITDA of NOK 97 million a year earlier.