Vodafone Idea has revealed its financial result – Capex, Opex, subscriber growth, 4G coverage, ARPU – during January-March 2024.
Highlights for the Quarter
# Revenue for the quarter stood at Rs 106.1 billion
# Highest post-merger quarterly EBITDA of Rs. 21.8 billion; grew by 5.4 percent
# ARPU of Rs 146 vs Rs 135 in Q4FY23; growth of 7.6 percent
# 4G subscriber base increased to 126.3 million vs 122.6 million in Q4FY23
Highlights for the Year
# Annual revenue of Rs. 426.5 billion (vs Rs. 421.8 billion in FY23); growth of 1.1 percent
# Annual EBITDA of Rs. 84 billion (vs Rs. 83 billion in FY23)
# EBITDA margin at 19.7 percent
Vodafone Idea has raised Rs 180 billion via FPO – the Largest FPO in India which was subscribed ~7 times.
Shareholders approved the equity issuance of Rs. 20.75 billion via Preferential allotment to one entity of ABG (Promoter group) at a price of Rs. 14.87 per equity share.
CAPEX
Vodafone Idea has revealed that Capex spend for the quarter stood at Rs. 5.5 billion, and capex for the year at Rs. 18.5 billion.
Vodafone Idea is aiming to invest Rs 500-550 billion towards Capex in the next three years. The capex will be towards expanding 4G population coverage in 17 priority circles, 5G launch in key cities / geographies and capacity expansion.
Vodafone Idea said its broadband site count stood at ~ 430,700 as of March 31, 2024.
Vodafone Idea added ~917 4G sites during January-March 2024. Vodafone Idea has shut down 3G in 6 circles with Kerala getting added to the list of 5 other circles; namely Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai and Kolkata where 3G spectrum is completely refarmed to 4G.
Till date, Vodafone Idea deployed ~74,850 TDD sites in addition to the deployment of ~13,950 Massive MIMO sites and ~13,300 small cells.
4G GROWTH
Vodafone Idea said its 4G subscriber base stood at 126.3 million at the end of Q4FY24 vs 122.6 million in Q4FY23, an addition of 3.7 million 4G subscribers over last one year.
The overall subscriber base stood at 212.6 million. ARPU improved to Rs. 146, up 7.6 percent on YoY basis vs Rs. 135 in Q4FY23, primarily aided by change in entry level plan and subscriber upgrades. The total data traffic for the quarter witnessed a YoY growth of 4.3 percent.