Idea Cellular Q1 loss at Rs 815 crore on Jio woes

Mumbai: Idea Cellular Ltd, India's No 3 telecoms firm, reported a third straight quarterly loss on Thursday, reeling in the wake of a price war wrought by new entrant to the sector, Reliance Jio.

It made a net loss of 8.15 billion rupees ($127.13 million) for the three months to June 30, compared with a profit of 2.20 billion a year earlier. Income fell by about 14 percent to 81.82 billion rupees.

Analysts on average estimated a loss of 6.71 billion rupees, Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S data showed.

Reliance Industries, led by India's wealthiest man Mukesh Ambani, entered India's telecoms industry last year, spending more than $30 billion on Jio and upending the sector with cheap smartphones and data plans.