Telecom Lead India: Vodafone India has posted 1 percent
dip in revenue at 1.029 billion pounds in the first quarter of 2012 against
1.039 billion pounds in same period previous year.
On-going regulatory issues, impact on data and messaging,
as well as a lower rate of growth at Indus Towers affected the growth.
Vodafone’s voice revenue in first quarter was 809 million
pounds, marginally down from 813 million pounds in Q1 2011.
Messaging declined to 38 million pounds from 44 million
pounds.
Despite 3G expansion, data revenue decreased to 83
million pounds from 87 million pounds.
Service revenue grew by 16.2 percent driven by an 8.6
percent increase in the closing customer base, strong growth in incoming and
outgoing mobile voice minutes and 1.6 percent growth in the effective outgoing
rate per minute.
Growth this quarter was 4.9 percentage points lower than
Q4 FY12, which had benefited from higher year-on-year customer growth. Q1 saw
the introduction of regulatory changes which impacted on the way integrated
tariffs can be offered to customers.
There was also a lower rate of growth at Indus Towers
following a slowdown in tenancies from new entrants and a change in the pricing
structure for some existing customers. Data revenue grew by 12.4 percent driven
by the increase in data customers and higher penetration of data enabled
handsets, as well as successful promotions. At 30 June 2012 active data
customers totaled approximately 31 million1 including around 1.7 million 3G
data customers.
