Vodafone India FY14 adjusted operating profit at Rs 3,496 crore

New Delhi: Vodafone reported a 60 per cent increase in adjusted operating profit at its Indian operations in the year ended March 31 on continued customer growth, data usage and improved voice pricing. Even as Vodafone Group's adjusted operating profit declined, for the local unit it came in at GBP 354 million (about Rs 3,496 crore) compared with GBP 221 million a year earlier.

Annual revenue in India increased marginally to GBP 4.39 billion (about Rs 43,400 crore) in FY14 from GBP 4.32 billion at the end of FY13. "Service revenue in India grew 13 per cent as the growing customer base used greater quantities of voice and data traffic, supported by effective voice price increases," Vodafone said in a statement.

Vodafone India had a 125 per cent year-on-year increase in data traffic. Vodafone had 52 million data customers in India, with 7 million of them 3G data customers. Vodafone Group's adjusted operating profit declined 37.4 per cent to GBP 7.87 billion at the end of FY14. The group's revenue declined 1.9 per cent to GBP 43.6 billion. Group profit jumped multi-fold to GBP 59.42 billion in FY14 after including a GBP 45 billion profit arising from the disposal of Vodafone's US group, whose principal asset was its 45 per cent stake in Verizon Wireless.

Vodafone Group had registered a profit of GBP 657 million a year ago. Vodafone said it has planned organic investments of about GBP 19 billion over the next two years. "We have concluded the vast majority of network vendor negotiations and have already started the rollout of this programme, principally in India and Germany. We expect total investments, including Project Spring, to be around GBP 19 billion over the next two years," Vodafone said.

The main elements of the Project Spring investment program include 4G in Europe, where it aims to reach 91 per cent population coverage by 2016, and 3G in emerging markets, especially India, where it plans to cover 95 per cent of the population by 2016. "The strategic steps we have taken in the last two years, allied to our planned organic investments of around GBP 19 billion over the next two years, place us in a very strong long-term position within the industry," Vodafone said.

Vodafone served a notice of arbitration to the Indian government last month over a dispute related to tax liability from its purchase of assets in the country from Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. The company also completed the acquisition of shares it did not own in Vodafone India last month.