Vodafone Idea Q1 Results: Narrows Consolidated Loss To Rs. 4,873.9 Crores

Vodafone Idea has narrowed its net loss to Rs. 4,873.9 crore for the June 2019 quarter. The company previously reported a loss of Rs. 4,881.9 crore in the fourth quarter of 2018-19.

The company's revenue declined by 4.3 percent quarter-on-quarter primarily due to the churn of customers after the introduction ofadopting recharge plans with minimum monthly recharges plans rates, the telco said in a regulatory filing.

However, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) for the quarter increased to Rs. 36.5 billion in contrast to Rs. 17.9 billion in Q4FY19.

Shedding light on the company's performance during last quarter, Balesh Sharma, CEO Vodafone Idea Limited shared that,said: "We are delivering on our stated strategy although the benefits are not yet visible in our topline. We are well on track to deliver our synergy targets by the June quarter next year. We expect these factors to increasingly contribute to our financial performance going forward."

The company also said that its capex spend for the first quarter was Rs 2,840 crore and its gross debt as on June 30, 2019, was at Rs 12,044 crore.

Vodafone Idea Losing Subscribers

Meanwhile, the company's subscriber base declined to 320.0 million from 334.1 million in Q4FY19. However, the high ARPU subscriber base remained broadly stable.

The churn of the subscribers reduced to 3.7 percent during Q1, compared to 7.2 percent in Q4. While ARPU now stands at Rs. 108, up 3.8 percent QoQ vs Rs. 104 in Q4FY19, Vodafone Idea informed.

Certainly, the company has some reason to cheer as it has added 4.1 million 4G customers, taking the overall 4G subscriber base to 84.8 million.

Furthermore, the telco has added 6,500 Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) sites to increase its 4G coverage and deployed 15,000 Time Division Duplex (TDD) sites and 4,400 Massive MIMO sites in select key locations.

Financial Health Of The Telecom Industry

There is no doubt that, Jio's free voice and dirt-cheap data offerings have dented the financial metrics of older operators. Brutal tariff war forced the operators to match the Jio's offering. And now, Reliance Jio has become the country's largest telecom operator with a subscriber base of 331.3 million, surpassing Vodafone Idea which reported a decline in its user base to 320 million by June 2019.