Vodafone Idea on Saturday paid Rs 1,701 crore, the second annual spectrum instalment to the department of telecommunications (DoT) towards 5G spectrum acquired last year, the company said in an exchange filing.
The company had bought 5G spectrum worth Rs 18,799 crore in last year’s 5G auction and had opted to clear its 5G spectrum dues to the government in 20 equal instalments. After having paid Rs 1,680 crore as first instalment last year, in August, the company had sought a 30-day grace period from DoT to pay the second spectrum instalment.
According to government rules on auction, in case the spectrum payment is delayed, an interest rate of 15% is charged. Vodafone Idea is currently the only operator which has not rolled out 5G services yet.
The company last month also said that it has received a communication from a promoter group entity confirming that in the event of any fund requirement for meeting its impending payment obligations by the company, it shall provide direct or indirect financial support to the extent of `2,000 crore.
Vodafone Idea, however, did not specify whether it has received the committed funding support from the promoter or not.
The company’s net loss for the April-June quarter widened to `7,840 crore from `6,419 crore in the preceding quarter. The company’s revenue from operations rose 1.2% QoQ to `10,655.5 crore.
In the April-June quarter, the company lost 4.5 million mobile subscribers, taking its subscriber base to 221.4 million at the end of June. Vodafone Idea’s blended churn of subscribers rose to 3.9% during the quarter, compared to 3.8% in April-June period.