Rs 3/Share Dividend Record Date Fixed; Midcap Telecom Stock To Award Investors After PAT Rises 28% YoY

Telecom services provider in the midcap basket, Route Mobile will be rewarding its investors with a third interim dividend for FY24 after the company posted over 28% growth in net profit for the third quarter that ended on December 31, 2023. Route Mobile has fixed the record and payment dates for the interim dividend, while its stock price will be in focus on Wednesday. The company said it reported its best quarterly revenues.

Route Mobile Dividend:

As per the regulatory filing, the company's board declared a third interim dividend of Rs 3 per share having a face value of Rs 10 each for FY24. The company fixed February 1, 2024, as the record date to ascertain the eligibility of the shareholders for payment of the third interim dividend.

The company plans to pay the dividend on or before February 20, 2024.

Further, Route Mobile said, under Finance Act, 2020, dividend income will be taxable in the hands of the shareholders with effect from April 1, 2020. Hence, the interim dividend declared by the Board of Directors shall be paid after deducting tax at source ('TDS') by the provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Members are requested to submit all requisite documents on or before February 1, 2024, to enable the Company to determine the appropriate TDS rates, as applicable.

In FY24, so far, the company paid first and second interim dividends of Rs 2 per share and Rs 3 per share respectively.

Route Mobile Share Price:

The stock price ended at Rs 1620.75 apiece, down by 1.2% on BSE with a market cap of Rs10,149.30 crore after trading hours of Tuesday.

On the current market price, Route Mobile has a dividend yield of 0.68%.

Route Mobile Q3 Results:

Revenue from operations for the quarter ended December 31, 2023, stood at Rs. 1,024.3 crore as compared to Rs. 1,014.6 crore in Q2 FY24.

Profit After Tax (PAT) was reported at Rs. 113.6 crore for Q3 FY24 as against Rs. 88.4 crore in Q2 FY24. PAT margin stood at 11.1%. PAT in Q3 FY24 was boosted by Exceptional Items amounting to Rs. 15.0 crore, representing the fair value gain, as of December 31, 2023, of the contingent consideration payable towards the acquisition of a 100% equity stake in M.R Messaging FZE.

Rajdipkumar Gupta, Managing Director & Group Chief Executive Officer, Route Mobile Limited, said, "I am delighted to share that we have registered our best quarterly revenues during the quarter gone by. It was a slightly muted performance, considering Q3 is historically our best quarter. This is due to the industry headwinds and delays in a couple of our large contracts going live. We have recently onboarded some large customers in Asia and Europe and they should gradually ramp up"

He also said, "We are encouraged by the growing adoption of channels like WhatsApp and RCS, some of our latest contract wins are equivalent to the monthly revenues of these product lines. The evolving messaging landscape is creating exciting opportunities for us to welcome numerous new clients to our omnichannel platform."

On the Proximus deal, he added, "We have secured the most important US approval and are in striking distance of the deal closure. A couple of regulatory approvals from the Middle East are awaited anytime soon"

Established in 2004, Route Mobile Limited ("RML") is a cloud communications platform service provider catering to enterprises, over-the-top (OTT) players, and mobile network operators (MNO).