Vodafone Idea on Wednesday once again posted a big loss of Rs 7,023 crore during the January-March quarter, wider than the Bloomberg consensus estimate of Rs 6,241.07 crore. The loss has widened significantly compared with the previous quarter of Rs 4,540 crore.
The company continued to lag on the operational front as well. The revenues declined sharply by nearly 12% on a quarter-on-quarter basis to Rs 9,608 crore, much below analyst expectations of Rs 10,040.50 crore.
Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), however, increased 2.8% sequentially to Rs 4,408 crore. Ebitda margins came in at 45.9%, a sharp increase of 660 basis points quarter-on-quarter.
The company’s average revenue per user (Arpu) during the quarter declined to Rs 107 compared with Rs 121 in the preceding quarter. Minutes of voice usage also declined to 657 minutes against 673 in the preceding quarter.
Average data consumption, however, rose to 13,068 MB against 12,288 MB in the previous quarter. Subscriber churn rose to 3% compared with 2.3% in the preceding quarter.