Idea plans Rs6,000 crore expansion this fiscal

24 April 2009

Riding on strong fourth quarter results, the Aditya Birla Group's telecom arm, Idea Cellular, the fifth largest GSM operator in India announced plans to invest Rs6,000 crore this fiscal in a pan-India expansion and strengthening its existing networks.

Releasing Idea Cellular's fourth quarter results in Mumbai yesterday, Sanjeev Aga, managing director, said that although the company does not want to forecast about the coming quarters, Idea is well equipped for any vagrancies in the market, even for some tough quarters.

The Mumbai-based telecom operator's net profit was Rs274.3 crore for the fourth quarter (Q4) ended 31 March 2009 compared to a net profit of Rs276.7 crore in the same quarter last year.

Its last quarter revenue rose to Rs2,935.6 crore while its last quarter revenue for last fiscal was Rs1,985.3 crore.

Total minutes used by customers on its on the network were 44,224 million, which grew by 9.9 per cent on a QoQ basis.

Aga said that he was completely satisfied with the results and since the company has sufficient liquidity, it is now planning to enter new markets as well as strengthen its existing ones.