Telecom operator Vodafone Group posted € 11,474 million (–3.3 percent) revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2018.
India revenue of Vodafone nosedived 13.9 percent in Q1 of fiscal 2018.
“Though competition in India remains intense, service revenues stabilised compared with the prior quarter. Our substantial investments in network leadership, an excellent customer experience and even greater propositions for customers are enabling us to monetise strong demand for mobile data,” Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao said.
“We are gaining profitable market share in broadband, and a growing proportion of our customers now take our fully converged offers. Our Internet of Things platform contributed to another quarter of solid growth in Enterprise. In addition, we are executing our ‘Fit for Growth’ cost efficiency programme in line with our plans,” Vittorio Colao said.
Vodafone India
Vodafone India service revenue declined 13.9 percent against another drop of 11.5 percent in Q4 fiscal 2017 as a result of continued price competition from Reliance Jio.
Despite a year-on-year decline, sequential quarterly trends are stabilising as SIM consolidation is beginning to improve ARPU in the low-value segment, helping offset pricing pressure in the mid and high-value segments of the base.
During the quarter Vodafone India grew mobile customer base by 2.9 million as compared with 4.4 million in Q4, while continuing to retain high value customers. Vodafone ended the quarter with a closing customer base of 211.9 million.
“Our focused investment strategy delivered a further improvement in our revenue market share in our leadership circles, based on regulatory disclosures for the prior quarter,” said Vodafone India in a statement.
Data browsing revenue declined 20.4 percent as compared with 15.9 percent drop in Q4 — reflecting further ARPU dilution from lower unitary prices, which declined 67 percent year-on-year against drop of 38 percent in Q4.
This did stimulate a 78 percent year-on-year growth in monthly data usage per customer to 1.1GB (Q4: 0.6GB).
Vodafone’s active data customer base grew for the second quarter in a row, increasing to 69.2 million, with the number of 3G/4G customers rising by 3.4 million to 41.1 million.
Voice revenue declined 14.2 percent (Q4: -13.2 percent*) as the benefit of higher incoming revenue and a larger customer base was offset by a 32 percent year-on-year decline in voice prices as the market moved to unlimited voice tariffs.
