State-owned Indian operator MTNL has sunk deeper into the red while Philippines PLDT improved earnings 19%.
Net losses at MTNL, which operates fixed line and mobile services in Delhi and Mumbai, blew out to 15.74 billion rupees ($350.83 million) in Q1, compared with 730.4 million rupees in Q1 last year.
Revenue fell 21% to 8.48 billion rupees on the back of severe mobile price competition in Delhi and Mumbai.
Profit was affected by ballooning costs, which doubled to 37.19 billion partly because of salary hikes.
MTNL said the results included a 4.49 billion-rupee provision to pay for 3G spectrum, which it was awarded ahead of the country’s private operators.
Meanwhile, PLDT’s Q1 income jumped 19% year on year to P11.4 billion ($254.86 million), as foreign exchange gains and a stronger broadband unit offset a slower mobile growth.
However, excluding currency and other non-recurring gains, PLDT’s core profit of P10.5 billion increased by just 3% as service revenue dipped 1%. Mobile service revenue also declined 1% due to the rising popularity of social networking sites, PLDT said.
Voice revenue jumped 13%, but revenue from text messaging was down 14% because of increased take-up bucket-priced promotions.
“For the first time since the first quarter of 2005, cellular voice revenue was higher than text revenue,” the company said.