Vodafone Idea on Thursday reported a net loss of ₹25,460 crore in the quarter ended in June. It had posted a net loss of ₹4,873 crore during the same period last year.
The telecom firm's revenue from operations declined 5.42% year-on-year to ₹10,659 crore. The June quarter revenue was affected by the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, the company said.
The EBITDA for the June quarter declined 6.4% YoY to ₹4,098.4 crore while EBITDA margin stood at 38.5%.
Gross debt (excluding lease liabilities) as of June 30, 2020, was ₹1,18,940 crore, including deferred spectrum payment obligations due to the Government of ₹92,270 crore, said the company.
Ravinder Takkar, managing director and chief executive officer, Vodafone Idea, said, “During the nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic, our teams did a phenomenal job of providing seamless high quality services, keeping people and businesses connected during these unprecedented times."
"Q1FY21 was a challenging quarter as availability of recharges due to store closure and ability of customers to recharge on account of economic slowdown were impacted," he added.
The merger of Indus Towers and Bharti Infratel has received FDI approval, the telecom company said in a statement. "The long stop date on the original agreement has been extended to August 31, 2020. We have option to monetize our 11.15% stake in Indus on completion of the Indus-Infratel merger," Vodafone Idea said in a filing.
The company's subscriber churn reduced to an all-time low of 2% (3.3% in Q4FY20), as net disconnections were lower during the quarter. As the retail stores were closed during the lockdown to prevent COVID-19 spread, the subscriber base of Vodafone Idea was severely impacted. The number of subscribers declined to 27.9 crore in June quarter.
ARPU for June quarter was ₹114.
The 4G subscriber base stood at 104.6 million at the end of the June quarter. Total data volumes grew by 10.6% (40.4% YoY), to 4,523 billion MB compared to the last quarter, being the highest growth in the last 6 quarters. Total minutes on the network declined by 6.0% during the quarter.
"The integration of erstwhile Vodafone India and Idea Cellular is now nearly complete, with Vodafone Idea realizing its targeted annualized opex synergies of ₹8,400 crore well ahead of the original timeline," the company said.
On the future plan, Vodafone Idea said, "Through cost optimisation plan, we plan to achieve ₹4,000 crore of annualized cost savings over next 18 months. As a step in that direction, we are in the process of organization wide restructuring, which will transform the company into a lean and agile ‘fit for future’ workplace."
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