S Mobility's Q1 net profit at Rs 4Cr; revenue growth sluggish for both mobile devices & services biz

S Mobility Ltd (formerly Spice Mobility Ltd) continues to see sluggish revenue growth in its mobile devices business while its services unit remained flat for the quarter ended September 30, 2012, compared to the corresponding period last fiscal.

The public-listed firm, which had recently changed its financial year (now beginning from July), saw revenues inch up 1.5 per cent to Rs 543.4 crore for the quarter over the year-ago period, but sequential growth over the three months ended June 30, 2012, was relatively better at 6.3 per cent.

S Mobility, which derives almost 90 per cent of its business from the mobile devices unit, reported consolidated net profit of Rs 4 crore, compared to Rs 5.2 crore net loss in the three months ended June 30, and Rs 10.2 crore net profit in the corresponding quarter last year. This depicts a relatively better performance on a sequential basis but deterioration in bottom line on a year-on-year basis.

Last year, the company switched its business model from essentially being a device-maker to a mobile internet firm, but is yet to see its services business generate strong revenue growth.

Services business revenue remained almost unchanged at Rs 60.5 crore in Q1 although it rose around 4.6 per cent sequentially. However, profitability in this unit remained under pressure. Segment profit from the business was down over 90 per cent (both sequentially and over the previous year) to just Rs 60 lakh.

The mobile devices segment incurred a loss of Rs 1.1 crore, a sharp cut from the loss of Rs 14.9 crore in the previous quarter, but the firm had clocked a profit of Rs 2.1 crore in the quarter ended September 2011. Revenues from devices business rose just 1 per cent over the year-ago period to Rs 483.3 crore, but it rose some 7 per cent sequentially.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)