Vodafone Thought Q3 web loss narrows to Rs 6,609 crore on tariff hikes, ARPU
The three way partnership between UK’s Vodafone Group PLC and India’s Aditya Birla Group although continued to be tormented by subscriber losses with its person base falling beneath 200 million, underlining the telco’s persevering with incapacity to compete with larger rivals, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, who’ve accomplished their 5G rollouts nationally and have wider and deeper 4G networks.
“We’re driving investments and the rate of capex deployment is about to speed up within the coming quarters,” Akshaya Moondra, chief government, Vodafone Thought, stated in an earnings assertion Tuesday.
“Concurrently, the phased rollout of 5G companies is underway, focusing on key geographies. We’re happy to report highest quarterly money EBITDA since merger of Rs. 24.5 billion, registering a YoY progress of ~15%,” he stated.
The industrial launch of 5G companies in Mumbai is deliberate for March 2025 and Delhi, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Patna for April 2025, Vi stated.
The telco’s ARPU — a key efficiency metric — grew 4.5% sequentially to Rs 163 on the again of the headline fee hikes final July. Vi’s quarterly income grew 4% on-year to Rs 11,100 crore.Earlier than the merger in August 31, 2018, Vodafone India had 204.68 million subscribers and Thought Mobile had 190.51 million subscribers.
However having not made any earnings because the merger and its weak money place since then meant the telco wasn’t in a position to make investments adequately in increasing its 4G community and begin 5G rollouts, resulting in fast person losses, say analysts.
Vi ended the December quarter with 199.8 million subscribers in contrast with 205 million within the July-September interval. Its 4G subscribers base grew from 125.9 million by September-end to 126 million by December. Subscriber churn – or customers leaving its community – remained flat at 4.5%.
“The sequential fall in web curiosity & finance prices helped Vi slender its Q3FY25 loss, and the flow-through of final July’s value hikes partly elevated revenues,” Rohan Dhamija, head (India & Center East) at Analysys Mason, informed ET.
“However heavy buyer losses stay the prime concern and Vi must quickly shut its lengthy pending debt-raise and comprehensively ramp up 4G protection and roll out 5G in precedence markets to rein in buyer losses,” he stated.
The telco’s shares closed 3.39% decrease at Rs 8.82 on the BSE Tuesday. The quarterly outcomes have been introduced after market hours.
Much less variety of 4G upgrades weighed on common information utilization which declined sequentially within the December quarter to fifteen.5 GB per 30 days from 15.8 GB a month beforehand. However, Vi’s common minutes of use per subscriber have elevated to 593 minutes from 587 minutes through the stated interval.
Having already raised round Rs 24,000 crore through the fairness route, the cash-strapped telco can also be in discussions with a consortium of banks to boost upto Rs 25,000 crore and extra non-fund-based amenities of upto Rs 10,000 crore, the corporate had stated beforehand.
“With the latest fairness infusion of Rs. 19.1 billion from one in every of our promoters, we’ve now secured roughly Rs.260 billion in contemporary fairness capital over the previous 10 months. In parallel, we proceed to have interaction with lenders for debt financing, aligning with our deliberate community growth funding of Rs. 500–550 billion over a three-year interval,” the CEO stated in Tuesday’s assertion.
Vi’s money and financial institution steadiness fell to Rs 12,090 crore as of December 31, 2024, on account spending in 5G community infrastructure and paying off debt.
Throughout the third quarter, Vi’s capex spends noticed a sequential rise to Rs 3200 crore versus Rs 1360 crore within the previous quarter. This, nonetheless, is considerably lower than Airtel which incurred a capex at Rs 8088.5 crore in Q3FY25. In the meantime for Jio, brokerage agency IIFL Securities pegs its community opex at Rs 7923 crore within the fiscal third quarter.
A separate disclosure of use of funds confirmed that Vi has spent Rs 6,199.94 crore out of the whole allocation of Rs 17,614.20 crore from the FPO proceeds. Rs 1,528.7 crore was spent on buy of community tools, Rs 1,982.39 crore on fee of deferred spectrum liabilities whereas Rs 2,688.9 crore was spent on company bills, the assertion confirmed.
The loss-making telco’s web debt stood at 2.29 lakh crore together with exterior debt from banks at Rs 2,345 crore, deferred spectrum fee obligations and adjusted gross income (AGR) associated dues of Rs 2.27 lakh crore.
Curiosity and finance value fell to Rs 5,690.4 crore in FYQ3 from Rs 6,313.6 crore in FYQ2.
