MTNL Q4 net up 15.5% YoY, beats forecasts

NEW DELHI: Indian telecoms giant Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL)

reported after market hours on Monday January-March net profit rose 15.5 per

cent from a year earlier, soundly beating analysts' expectations.

Fourth-quarter net profit rose to Rs 4.16 billion ($84.95 million) or Rs

6.61a share, from 3.6 billion or Rs 5.72 a share in the same period a year

earlier.

State-run MTNL, which provides fixed-line, cellular and Internet access

services in two of India's biggest telecom markets, Mumbai and New Delhi, said

net income from services rose nearly three per cent to Rs 13.81 billion from

13.41 billion a year earlier.

A Reuters poll of brokerages released earlier this month forecast MTNL's

fourth-quarter net profit would fall by a median 12 per cent to Rs 3.18 billion,

on sales of 14.6 billion, up 8.8 per cent. The results pleased analysts, most of

whom had expected profits to fall sharply weighed down by a steep cut in

long-distance tariffs and higher taxes.

Domestic long-distance tariffs, vital for fixed-line companies such as MTNL

for subsidising cheaper local calls, plunged by up to 62 per cent in January

after a private competitor entered the state-dominated business.

But net profit for the full year fell 5.3 per cent to Rs 14.59 billion from

15.40 billion a year earlier. Net income from services rose 6.25 per cent to

61.47 billion. Shares of the New York Stock Exchange-listed MTNL ended up 2.05

per cent at Rs 139.10 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, whose benchmark index shed

2.09 per cent.