Vodafone Idea has recorded gross revenue of INR112.7 billion (USD1.6 billion) for the three months to end-June 2019, down 4.3% from INR117.8 billion in the previous quarter. The cellco noted that the drop was partially offset by further costs synergy realisation, with operating expenditure falling for the second consecutive quarter, dropping to INR76.2 billion from INR99.9 billion in the preceding three months and INR106.billion in the period to end-December 2018. Meanwhile, EBITDA and EBITDA margin more than doubled quarter-on-quarter from INR17.9 billion and 15.2% to INR36.2 billion and 32.4%, respectively. Net losses for the quarter widened by INR300 million to INR49.1 billion, largely due to an increase in depreciation and amortisation costs. Vodafone Idea attributed the increases in EBITDA and depreciation and amortisation to the adoption of new accounting standards.
The operator’s subscriber base fell to 320.0 million at end-June from 334.1 million three months earlier as a result of the introduction of ‘service validity vouchers’ in late 2018, which require customers to make a minimum recharge every month. The cellco notes that it has introduced a better value proposition for low ARPU subscribers to reduce churn, and has begun offering larger data bundles in an effort to upgrade heavy data users to its INR169 and INR199 plans, which the company says should improve overall ARPU over time. 4G subscriptions continued to grow, though, reaching 84.8 million from 80.7 million in March 2019 and 75.3 million three months before that.
Regarding the integration of the former Vodafone India and Idea Cellular networks, meanwhile, the company noted that it has removed surplus equipment from around 38,000 of the roughly 73,000 co-located sites, and had exited 14,000 low utilisation sites.