Indian cellco Vodafone Idea, which now operates under the Vi brand name, has published its financial results for the three months ended 30 September 2020, booking gross revenue of INR107.9 billion (USD1.5 billion), down from INR108.4 billion a year earlier. EBITDA for the period was INR41.5 billion compared to INR34.0 billion a year earlier, due in part to the company’s cost optimisation efforts and the completion of its network integration programme. Quarterly net loss narrowed to INR72.0 billion from INR254.7 billion in the preceding quarter and INR509.0 billion a year ago, although both of the earlier quarters were negatively impacted by the Supreme Court’s rulings on Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR).
The cellco counted a total of 271.8 million mobile subscribers at end-September 2020, down from 279.8 million three months earlier and 311.1 million in September 2019. The reduction in its user base has been a deliberate part of Vodafone’s strategy, however, and has helped drive an increase in ARPU to INR119 in 3Q20 from INR107 a year ago, as many of the users disconnected over the last year were low-spending or incoming only subscribers that used their phones primarily to receive calls. A total of 137.5 million subscribers were data users – down from 140.3 million a year earlier – including 106.1 million 4G customers (95.9 million in September 2019).