Indebted telecom operator Vodafone Idea reported on Friday increasing its consolidated loss to Rs. 7,230.9 crore for the third quarter ended December 2021.
The company incurred a loss of Rs. 4,532.1 crore in the same period a year ago.
Consolidated revenue from operations fell by 10.8% to Rs. 9,717.3 crore of Rs. 10,894.1 crore in the last year period.
“We are pleased to announce the second consecutive quarter of revenue growth driven by various tariff interventions carried out in recent months. While the overall subscriber base has declined as a result of tariff interventions, the 4G subscriber base has remained resilient by the data and voice experience offered by Vi GIGAnet,” VIL MD and CEO Ravinder Takkar said in a statement.
Vodafone Idea’s subscriber base dropped to 24.72 crore from 26.98 crore in the same quarter last year because of tariff increases by the company.
“In November 2021, we increased prepaid rates on all prices including unlimited plans and combo vouchers, moving the basic prepaid plan to Rs. 99.
“Consequently, ARPU has improved to Rs. 115, an increase of 5.2% on the previous quarter (quarter-on-quarter) versus Rs. 109 in the second quarter (Q2) of the fiscal year (FY) 2022. The subscriber base dropped to 247.2 million versus 253.0 million in the second quarter of the fiscal year 22, because of these tariff interventions,” the statement said.
Despite the rate increases, the average revenue per user (ARPU) during the reported quarter fell by around 5% compared to Rs. 121 recorded in the same quarter of 2020-21.
The company further said that its 4G subscriber base continued to grow with 80 lakh of customers added during the quarter. The 4G base is now 11.7 crore.
VIL said it achieved around 90% annualized savings based on execution rate by the end of the reported quarter against the target of Rs. 4,000 crores.
Total gross debt excluding lease liabilities and including accrued but not due interest as at 31 December 2021 was Rs. 1,98,980 million.
This included deferred spectrum payment obligations of Rs. 1.11.300 crore, AGR liability of Rs. 64,620 crore which is owed to the government and debts from banks and financial institutions of Rs. 23,060 million.
The company’s cash and cash equivalents were at Rs. 1,500 crore and net debt stood at Rs. 1,97,480 million.
The indebted company chose to pay interest of around Rs. 16,000 crore through preferred shares to the government. This will make the government hold a 35.8% stake in the company.