Tata Communications reports 42.9 pc increase in cons net loss

Mumbai, May 30: Telecommunications solutions provider, Tata Communications, on Sunday, May 29 reported a 42.9 per cent increase in its consolidated net loss at Rs 854.19 crore for the year ended March 2011, mainly due to its stake in South African firm Neotel.

In FY 10, Tata Communications had reported a net loss of Rs 597.74 crore, a press release issued here today stated.

The consolidated loss for the year includes loss of Rs 551.02 crore for the company's effective holding of 49.01 per cent in the South Africa-based firm Neotel, the release said.

For FY 11, the company's consolidated revenues increased by 8.22 per cent to Rs 11,931.99 crore from Rs 11,025.56 crore last year.

"Over the past few years, we have focused our investments on building and strengthening our global assets, services and capabilities which has impacted profitability. Our focus now is to put the business on a firm path to profitability, driven by growth in our enterprise business, growth in new segments like cloud computing, improved performance at Neotel and a sharp focus on costs," the company's Managing Director and CEO, Vinod Kumar, said.

The company recorded a 66.85 per cent dip in its standalone net profit to 160.16 crore in FY 11 as compared to Rs 483.18 crore last year. The standalone revenue stood at Rs 3,409 crore, a 5.93 per cent rise as compared to Rs 3,218.04 crore in FY 10.

During the fiscal year, the company entered into a partnership with Google to bring on-the-go business connectivity to enterprises in India (InstaOffice) and also opened the state-of-the-art USD 180 million data centre, Tata Communications Exchange in Singapore, the release said.

In FY 11, the company had announced the international launch of InstaCompute, its cloud infrastructure and application services offering, and had also signed a significant international voice sourcing agreement with Videotron, one of Canada's largest communications companies.

PTI