NEW DELHI: Idea Cellular , the third largest telecom operator, on Thursday reported a consolidated loss of Rs 815 crore for the June quarter.The company had reported Rs 325.60 losses for March quarter.The company blamed new entrant ( Reliance Jio ) for the numbers, as the ‘market aggression’ with heavily discounted unlimited voice and data pricing plans by a peer pushed the company introduce similar competitive unlimited price plans, Idea said in a BSE filing.Total revenue for the quarter rose 0.5 per cent QoQ, but fell 13.9 per cent YoY to Rs 8166.50 crore.The company had reported Rs 8,126 crore revenue in March quarter and Rs 9,486.60 crore revenue in the year-ago quarter.The company in March had announced merger with India’s business of UK’s Vodafone Group (Excluding Vodafone's 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers) to create the domestic largest operator. The scheme of arrangement has been filed with Sebi and CCI has already cleared the deal.Bigger peer Bharti Airtel’s quarterly too had a rough June quarter, as the company had reported a 75 per cent slump in net profit to the lowest level in four-and-a-half years.Idea said aggressive tariff led by unlimited voice and data bundle plans resulted in steep decline in voice and mobile data realisations. "However, the fall in realisation rate was largely compensated by a substantial volume growth," it said.Voice minutes during the quarter rose 8.4 per cent QoQ to 250.7 billion minutes from 231.4 billion minutes. Voice realisation rate fell by 5.7 per cent to 24.4 paise per minute from 25.9 paise in March quarter.Mobile data rate plunged 52.9 per cent in Q1FY18 to 5.4 paise per MB from 11.5 paise in Q4FY17.

Source: Economic Times July 27, 2017 11:18 UTC