Vodafone Idea narrows Q1FY23 loss to Rs 7,295 cr; ARPU surges 23.4 pc to Rs 128

It recorded a year-on-year (YoY) growth of 13.7 percent in quarterly revenue at Rs 10,410 crore during the period under review.

The telco's ARPU (average revenue per user) for the quarter also surged 23.4 percent YoY to Rs 128 following the tariff hikes it announced last year.

Its EBIDTA margin declined sequentially to 41.6 percent from 45.6 percent in the previous quarter.

The total gross debt at the end of the June quarter stood at Rs 1,990.8 billion, constituting deferred spectrum payment obligations of Rs 1,166.0 billion and AGR liability of Rs 672.7 billion that the company owes to the Government of India.

This also includes debt from banks and financial institutions of Rs 152.0 billion, the telecom operator said.

The company recorded a growth in revenue for the fourth consecutive quarter, Vodafone Idea's CEO and MD Ravinder Takker said.

"We continue to witness 4G subscriber growth on the back of superior data and voice experience offered by Vi GIGAnet as well as due to our focus on creating a differentiated digital experience for our customers," he said.

The company continues to remain engaged with lenders and investors for further fundraising, he added.

In the first quarter of FY23, the company's customer base declined to 240.4 million against 243.8 million in Q4FY22 (the previous quarter) but 4G consumer base registered growth.

"However, the 4G subscriber base continued to grow and with 1.0 million customers added in Q1, 4G base now stands at 119.0 million. Subscriber churn was marginally higher at 3.5 percent vs 3.4 percent in Q4FY22. We continue to see high data usage per 4G customer at approximately 14.3 GB/month with the total data traffic witnessing healthy sequential growth of 3.6 percent," it said.

In the recently concluded 5G spectrum auction, Vodafone Idea acquired 5G spectrum (3300 MHz band) in 17 priority circles and mmWave 5G spectrum (26 GHz band) in 16 circles.

"We believe that the above spectrum acquisition will enable us to strengthen our position in our key markets and it aligns well with our long-term strategic intent. With this, we now have a solid portfolio of spectrum across all bands in all our priority circles," Vodafone Idea said.