OREANDA-NEWS. Tata Communications announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and year-ended March 31, 2013.

FY13

Consolidated gross revenues improved by 21 percent to Rs172,130 million (USD 3,165 million at average foreign exchange of INR/USD 54.38) in FY13 as compared to Rs141,961 million (USD 2,963 million average foreign exchange of INR/USD 47.91) last year. The core business revenues stood at Rs153,181 million (USD 2,817 million) from Rs124,580 million (USD 2,600 million) in FY12, marking a growth of 23 percent.

Global voice services (GVS) registered a total of 62 billion voice minutes compared to 55 billion minutes in FY12. Global data services (GDS) revenues grew 20 percent at Rs67,534 million (USD 1,242 million) in FY13 from Rs56,462 million (USD 1,179 million) in the same period last year.

In the start-up business, revenue improvement was at 9 percent at Rs18,948 million (ZAR2,956 million average foreign exchange of INR/ZAR 6.41) from Rs17,381 million (ZAR2,699 million average foreign exchange of INR/ZAR 6.44) in FY12. The start-up EBITDA margins stood at 10.3 percent in FY13 – a significant turnaround from 0.8 percent in FY12.

Q4 FY13

Consolidated gross revenues grew by 11 percent to Rs44,005 million (USD 812 million average foreign exchange of INR/USD 54.19) in Q4 FY13 from Rs39,613 million (USD 787 million average foreign exchange of INR/USD 50.34) in Q4 FY12. The core business revenues improved by 12 percent at Rs39,345 million (USD 726 million) from Rs35,091 million (USD 697 million) in the same quarter last year.

GVS reported a healthy growth of minutes in Q4 FY13. The total voice minutes carried in Q4 FY13 advanced to 15.4 billion from 15.2 billion minutes in Q4 FY12. GDS revenues showed a growth of 8 percent at Rs17,463 million (USD 322 million) in Q4 FY13 as compared to Rs16,126 million (USD 320 million) in Q4 FY12; supported by improved sales traction and increased pipeline activity.

The start-up business, comprising primarily of Neotel, posted a growth in revenues of 3 percent at Rs4,660 million (ZAR768 million average foreign exchange of INR/ZAR 6.07), from Rs4,522 million (ZAR698 million average foreign exchange of INR/ZAR 6.48) in Q4 FY12. Start-up EBITDA margins stood at 7.4 percent in Q4 FY13, a marked improvement from 5.3 percent in the corresponding quarter last year.

Commenting on the performance of Q4 and FY13, Vinod Kumar, MD and group CEO, Tata Communications, said, “We witnessed strong revenues and EBITDA growth of 21 percent and 15 percent respectively in FY13. We have outpaced our peers and gained market share in almost every market segment and geography that we operate in. This is impressive given the economic and industry conditions that we operated under. During the course of the year, we held our course and continued to invest in sales and marketing as well as services innovation. These investments will start yielding fruit in the current year and beyond.”

FY13 business highlights

Tata Communications launched 100G connectivity to carriers and enterprises across the US and Europe on its TGN-Atlantic subsea cable system - from New York to London. This upgrade is delivering increased bandwidth and network scale to meet increasing capacity demands as a result of the heightened use and deployments of cloud computing, smart devices and data-rich applications (music/HD video downloading and social networking applications).

Tata Communications further unites the world's video collaboration community with the addition of AT&T to its global telepresence network. The agreement enables virtual collaboration around the world, across each respective network. With this latest in a series of interprovider agreements, Tata Communications' Global Meeting Exchange™ network now provides connections to most of today's major providers of telepresence services, offering customers unprecedented reach for their business video networks.

Tata Communications supports the mobile industry migration to 4G with one of the industry's widest reaching managed service offerings for mobile broadband enablement. Building on its extensive portfolio of mobile services, including IPX+ connectivity, voice, messaging, and signalling, Tata Communications introduced two new solutions – the virtual private roaming hub which consolidates roaming operations, and the LTE roaming service to streamline roaming for 4G networks.

Tata Communications launched world's first cloud-based policy management solution for mobile network operators (MNOs) that enables faster creation of differentiated mobile data services, with significantly less capital investment. The hosted policy engine allows MNOs to move beyond flat-rate data packages to deliver targeted data service offers for new revenue streams. This allows mobile operators to create targeted service packages to optimise network resources and revenue through tiered service plans for customers.

FY13 customer highlights

Mercedes AMG Petronas selected Tata Communications to deliver world-class trackside connectivity at all of its Formula One® race locations using the Tata Communications global network. Through this implementation, Tata Communications enables the team to transfer vital real-time data from the Silver Arrow cars at any Grand Prix location to its headquarters in the UK, three times faster. The improved trackside connectivity will enable the team to react more quickly to developments at the track and help to increase car performance.

Tata Communications signed strategic voice solutions agreement with UPC Wholesale. This agreement enables UPC Wholesale to integrate its different existing voice networks into one single, next-generation platform via Tata Communications’ IP voice switching platform and support systems.

Mott MacDonald selected Tata Communications as its global telecommunications partner for the next five years in a deal worth over USD 20 million. Tata Communications was chosen as a result of its comprehensive range of integrated and unified communications solutions – solutions that will allow the diverse global management, engineering and development consultancy to consolidate its multiple regional systems onto a single platform. The move will create new levels of global collaboration as well as a solid competitive advantage for Mott MacDonald.

FY13 awards and recognitions

Tata Communications was positioned in the leaders' quadrant in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Asia Pacific Network Service Providers 2012. The Magic Quadrant evaluates network service providers based on their completeness of vision and ability to execute.

Tata Communications was honoured with four prestigious awards in the Enterprise Telecom Services category at the 2013 Frost & Sullivan (India) Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Awards:

Enterprise Data Service Provider of the Year (fifth year in a row)

Hosted Contact Centre Service Provider of the Year (third year in a row)

Third-Party Managed Service Provider of the Year (second year in a row)

Managed Video Conferencing Service Provider of the Year