PremiumMUMBAI : Shares of Vodafone Idea Ltd on Wednesday gained 12.96% after the company reported addition in wireless subscribers for the first time since October 2019. At 2.45 pm, Vodafone Idea was trading at ₹8.87, up 9.51% from its previous close, while the benchmark index, Sensex lost 0.81% to 48,761.98 points.
According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) data released on Tuesday, Vodafone Idea gained 652,625 customers in February, after losing 57.7 million users since October 2019.
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Premium Premium "The telco recorded subscriber addition of 0.7 million in February, with visitor location register (VLR) loss decelerating sequentially to 0.2 million subscribers. The Uttar Pradesh (east and west) circle saw VLR loss of 0.9 million subscribers, while West Bengal saw 0.4 million addition. Across other circles, VLR subscriber movement was largely stable on a sequential basis," said analysts at Emkay Global Financial in a note to clients. VLR refers to the active subscribers on a network.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd led gains, with the Mukesh Ambani-owned telecom operator adding more subscribers than Bharti Airtel Ltd for the first time since July 2020. While Jio gained 4.3 million subscribers in February, Airtel signed up 3.7 million customers during the month.
Despite the addition, Vodafone Idea’s market share shrank marginally to 24.20% from January, while Airtel’s expanded to 29.83% as of 28 February. At 35.54%, Reliance Jio remains India’s largest operator by market share.
Vodafone Idea narrowed its consolidated loss to ₹4,532.4 crore for the quarter ended December, against a net loss of ₹6,421.4 crore in the year-ago period. Consolidated revenue from operations fell by 2.16% to ₹10,849.1 crore compared with ₹11,089.4 crore in the same period last year.
In the past one year, shares of Vodafone Idea have gained 80% against a rise of 56% in the benchmark index Sensex.
Vodafone Idea is saddled with huge government debt. It will have to pay ₹50,400 crore of adjusted gross revenue dues to the government in 10 annual instalments by 31 March 2031. Its annual instalments of about Rs15,500 crore would start from financial year 2023, once the two-year moratorium ends.
The company’s fundraising has also been delayed. According to a report by The Economic Times, Vodafone Idea has decided to conclude its delayed fundraising, initially of about $1 billion (around ₹7,500 crore), by June end. The cash-strapped operator had announced its ₹25,000-crore fundraising plan in September 2020.
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