Tata Communications today posted a decline in consolidated net profit by 79.8 per cent at Rs 21.89 crore in the quarter ended December 31, 2015.
The company had reported a net profit of Rs 108.53 crore in the same period a year ago.
"Core business profit after tax improved from Rs 39 crore to Rs 91 crore. Year-on-Year (YoY), consolidated PAT declined due to one time interest income on tax refund," Tata Communications Chief Financial Officer Pratibha K Advani told PTI.
The consolidated total income of the company, however, increased 3.7 per cent to Rs 5,099.5 crore during the quarter under review from Rs 4,914.51 crore in the corresponding period of 2014-15.
Tata Communications reported decline in its voice service business, but data services business witnessed growth during the quarter.
"We are happy to have delivered yet another quarter of steady growth despite volatility in the macro-economic environment. We have seen a 16.7 per cent year-on-year increase in third quarter data revenues," Tata Communications MD and CEO Vinod Kumar said.
Global voice segment continues to be adversely impacted by structural industry-level headwinds namely the growing acceptance of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) delivered by over the top carriers (OTTs) coupled with a steep decline in tariffs, the company said.
The revenue of Tata Communications from voice solutions declined by about 5 per cent to Rs 2,009.54 crore from Rs 2,114.14 crore while that of data and managed services segment increased 16.7 per cent to Rs 2,723.3 crore from Rs 2,332.67 crore during the October-December quarter.
"Our data business offering is growing at a significant pace ahead of the industry. The robust and predictable data performance has provided headroom to absorb volatility in the voice segment," Advani said.
Shares of Tata Communications closed 1.38 per cent down at Rs 404.55 a piece on BSE today.
