Vodafone Idea Loss Swells to Rs. 7,990 Crore in Q3 Even as Company Posts Increased YoY Revenue

Debt-ridden telecom operator Vodafone Idea on Tuesday reported widening of its consolidated loss to Rs. 7,990 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2022. The company had registered a loss of Rs. 7,234.1 crore in the same period a year ago.

The consolidated revenue from operations of Vodafone Idea (VIL), however, increased by 9.29 percent to Rs. 10,620.6 crore from Rs. 9,717.3 crore in the December 2021 quarter.

"On a YoY basis, revenue growth is strong at 9.3 percent aided by improvement in subscriber mix, tariff intervention and 4G subscriber additions," the company said in a statement.

The government during the quarter converted Rs. 16,133 crore interest related to deferment of spectrum auction instalments and AGR dues into equity, and now holds around 33 percent stake in the company.

"Separately, our board has approved issuance of Optionally Convertible Debentures amounting to Rs 16 billion to ATC India. With these positive developments, we continue to remain engaged with our lenders for further debt fund raising as well as with other parties for equity or equity linked fund raising, to make required investments for network expansion and 5G rollout," VIL CEO Akshaya Moondra said.

VIL's average revenue per user, a key performance indicator of telecom operators, improved by 17.4 percent on a year-over-year basis to Rs. 135 during the December 2022 quarter from Rs. 115 a year ago on account of tariff hikes and migration of subscribers to unlimited tariff plans.

The overall subscriber base of the company declined to 22.86 crore during the reported quarter from 23.44 crore in the September 2022 quarter.

VIL said that its 4G subscriber base continued to grow and with 10 lakh 4G customers added during the quarter, 4G subscriber base of the company stood at 12.16 crore.

"We continue to see high data usage per broadband customer at about 15.1 GB per month with the total data traffic witnessing sequential growth of 0.8 per cent." the company said.

The company made capital expenditure of Rs. 750 crore during the December 2022 quarter. VIL said that it has shut down around 2,800 3G sites during the quarter and added about 2,000 4G sites.

"Our overall broadband site count stood at 443,450 as of December 31, 2022," the company said.

The total gross debt (excluding lease liabilities and including interest accrued but not due) as of December 31, 2022 stood at Rs 2.22 lakh crore, comprising of deferred spectrum payment obligations of Rs. 1.39 lakh crore and adjusted gross revenue liability of Rs. 69,910 crore that are due to the government, the company said.

The debt from banks and financial institutions stood at Rs. 13,190 crore.

The company also announced the appointment of its Executive Vice-President for Financial Controller and Taxation Head, Murthy G V A S as the Interim Chief Financial Officer and Key Managerial Personnel of the company, with effect from February 15, 2023.