BUSINESS PROFILE :
Idea Cellular was formed as a joint venture company in the year 1995 by Aditya Birla Group and the AWS group as `Birla Communications`. The name of the company was changed to its present name in 2002 with the launch of the brand name, `Idea`. The company is now a part of the Aditya Birla group and it is the sole promoter. The company offers pre-paid and post-paid mobile services in 11 circles under the brand names, `Idea ChitChat` and `Idea`, respectively.
The company is a mobile operator and currently operates in 11 circles, which comprises of one metropolitan circle, three category A circles, six category B circles and one category C circle. These circles are the metropolitan circle of Delhi, the category A circles of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra; the category B circles of Haryana, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh (East) and Uttar Pradesh (West) and the category C circle of Himachal Pradesh. It ranks among the top three operators in six of its 11 circles.
In addition, the company operates about 589 Idea `n U and other showrooms which supplement its distribution channels and provides customer services. The company has deployed the highly developed `intelligent network` system from Ericsson and Nokia for its prepaid systems and has integrated these with its `online service control` system for online charging of roaming SMS, WAP, MMS and GPRS for prepaid subscribers. The company`s GSM network is supplied by leading equipment suppliers such as Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens.
The company has eight subsidiary companies, namely, Asian Telephone Services, Bhagalaxmi Investments, Sapte Investments, Vsapte Investments, BTA Cellcom, Swinder Singh Satara and Co., Idea Mobile Communications and Idea Telecommunications. The company`s registered office is located at Gandhinagar in Gujarat.
Financials
The company has posted a growth of 176.67% in profit after tax at Rs 2117.66 million for the year ended March 2006 as compared with Rs 765.42 million for the year ended March 2005. Total income increased by 31.55% to Rs 29898.8 million for the year under consideration from Rs 22728.24 million during the corresponding period.
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