NEW DELHI: Highly distress telecom firm Vodafone Idea (Vi) on Thursday reported an increase in its quarterly net loss to Rs 7,596 crore for the second quarter of financial year 2022-23 (Q2FY23) as against Rs 7,132 crore loss it reported in the year ago quarter.
Except the last financial year’s March quarter (Q4FY22) when the telco reported a net loss of Rs 6,561 crore, Vi’s net loss has been over Rs 7,000 crore in four of the five quarters. In contrast, Bharti Airtel net profit rose to Rs 2,145 crore for the September quarter, while Reliance Jio Infocomm’s net profit surged to Rs 4,518 crore in the same quarter.
The telco’s revenues during the quarter under review grew by 12.9% year-on-year to Rs 10,614 crore. In Q2 of last financial year, the telco’s revenue stood at Rs 9,406 crore. Vi’s operating margin slipped nearly 3% to 38.6% in Q2FY23 from 41.6% in Q1FY23.
The positive take away for the earning report was improvement in Vi’s ARPU, which edged up to Rs 131 during Q2, from Rs 128 in the previous quarter, and Rs 109 in the same period last year. This, however, was much lower than the average revenue per user (ARPU) of Reliance Jio (Rs 177) and Bharti Airtel (Rs 190). Reduction in subscriber base continues to remain a big issue as the telco lost 6 million subscribers and its subscriber base came down to 234.4 million as of September 30, 2022, from over 240 million as of September 30, 2021.
Vodafone Idea’s net worth worsened and stood at a negative Rs 76,417 crore from negative Rs 69,261 crore in the June quarter and negative Rs 52,686 crore a year ago. The company informed that its gross debt as on September 30 stood at Rs 2.2 lakh crore, which includes deferred spectrum payment dues of Rs 1.4 lakh crore, adjusted gross revenue dues of Rs 68,600 crore and debt of Rs 15,080 crore. Akshaya Moondra, CEO, Vodafone Idea, said, “Our board has recently approved issuance of Optionally Convertible Debentures amounting to Rs16 billion to ATC India.”