Vodafone Idea reported a loss of ₹7296.7 crore for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 on Wednesday. Losses had a flat trajectory year-on-year, down by 0.3 per cent, in comparison to the loss of ₹7,319 crore reported in Q1 FY22. Revenue from operations was up by 13.7 per cent year-on-year to ₹10,410 crore for Q1 FY23, versus revenue of ₹9,152 reported on Q1 FY22.
In the recently concluded 5G auctions, the company purchased 5G spectrum worth ₹18,799 crore, purchasing 3.5GHz and 26GHz in priority circles, 17 circles for 3.5GHz and 16 circles of mm-wave. As of Q1 FY23, the company’s net worth stands at negative ₹69,260.5 crore, with the net debt for the company standing at ₹1,99-lakh crore. The existing debt payable by 30 June 2023 is ₹6,953 crore.
As per the company’s audit notes, the group’s ability to continue as a going concern is dependent on raising additional funds through debt and investors as and when it is required. Vodafone Idea’s limited participation in the recently concluded 5G auctions could mar investors’ confidence, according to experts.
In their quarterly report for Q1 FY23, Vodafone Idea noted: “Vodafone Idea has a total of 8,005.2 MHz of spectrum across difference frequency bands out of which 7,975.2MHz spectrum is liberalised and can be used towards deployment of any technology.
The report added: “In the recently concluded spectrum auction (July 2022), we have acquired mid band 5G spectrum (3,300 MHz band) in our 17 priority circles and mmWave 5G spectrum (26 GHz band) in 16 circles, which will enable us to offer superior 5G experience to our customers, as well as strengthen our enterprise offerings and provide new opportunities for business growth in the emerging 5G era. We, thus, have a solid portfolio of spectrum across all bands in all our priority circles.”
Regarding the impact of the tariff hikes, the report noted: “ARPU (Average revenue per user) improved to ₹ 128, up 3.6 per cent QoQ versus ₹124 in Q4 FY22. On a YoY basis, ARPU witnessed strong growth of 23.4 per cent aided by tariff hikes.” Vodafone Idea’s subscriber base declined to 240.4 million vs 243.8 million in Q4 FY22. “However, the 4G subscriber base continued to grow and with 1.0 million customers added in Q1, the 4G base now stands at 119.0 million. Subscriber churn was marginally higher at 3.5 per cent vs 3.4 per cent 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 per cent,” noted the quarterly report.
Published on
August 03, 2022
