Vodafone Idea narrows Q1 loss to Rs 4,873.9 crore

New Delhi: India's largest telecom operator Vodafone Idea Ltd on Friday narrowed its consolidated loss to Rs 4,873.9 crore for the June 2019 quarter.

The company had registered a loss of Rs 4,881.9 crore in the fourt quarter of 2018-19, Vodafone Idea Ltd said in a regulatory filing.

The merger of the India unit of Vodafone Group and Idea Cellular was completed on August 31, 2018, and the numbers of June quarter are not comparable with those in the year-ago period.

The revenue of Vodafone Idea for the June 2019 quarter fell to Rs 11,269.9 crore as against Rs 11,775 crore logged in the January-March 2019 quarter.

Established operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea Ltd are in the midst of a bruising tariff war following the entry of Reliance Jio, backed by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani.

Vodafone Idea said the first quarter revenue "declined by 4.3 per cent quarter-on-quarter primarily due to churn of customers who recharged with 'service validity vouchers' in the fourth quarter as well as ARPU (average revenue per user) downtrading".

The filing added that the company has closed its rights issue, raising Rs 25,000 crore.

"We are delivering on our stated strategy although the benefits are not yet visible in our topline. As we continue to integrate our networks, our customers' data experience is significantly improving in most service areas..." Vodafone Idea CEO Balesh Sharma said.

He added that the company is well on track to deliver its synergy targets by the first quarter of FY21.

The company said its capex spend for the first quarter was Rs 2,840 crore, and its gross debt as on June 30, 2019 was at Rs 12,044 crore.

The company's subscriber base declined to 320 million from 334.1 million in the fourth quarter.

Jio's free voice and dirt-cheap data offering have dented the financial metrics of older operators, deepening the impact of regulatory decisions like cut in termination charges, even though the voice and data usage have been growing at a scorching pace.

Last week, Reliance Jio - which is now India's second largest telecom operator in subscriber base - posted 45.6 per cent rise in net profit for June quarter of 2019-20 to Rs 891 crore.

For the first quarter ended June 30, Reliance Jio's operating revenue stood at Rs 11,679 crore, up 44 per cent over the year-ago period. Its subscriber base stood at 331.3 million as on June 30, 2019.