The company reported a revenue of ₹10,716 crore in the three-month period, marginally higher than ₹10,615 crore in the same period last year. The Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) margin was also up to 40% from 38.6%.

The number of 4G subscribers rose to 124.7 million in the quarter from 120.6 million last year. The average revenue per user (ARPU), a key metric of profitability, rose substantially to ₹142 per month from ₹131 a month, aided by the migration of subscribers to higher ARPU plans. However, net interest and finance costs rose to ₹6,534 crore for the quarter from ₹6,033 crore last year.

“We are pleased to report another quarter of consecutive revenue growth, improvement in ARPU and 4G subscriber additions. We have also revamped our customer offerings over last few quarters to make our offerings more relevant to the customers with the changing customer needs and evolving industry landscape. We remain focused on our execution to effectively compete in the market,” said Akshaya Moondra, CEO, Vodafone Idea Limited.

“We remain engaged with our lenders for further debt fundraising as well as with other parties for equity and equity-linked fundraising to make the required investments for network expansion, including the 5G rollout,” he added.

Vodafone Idea’s net debt stood at ₹2.127 lakh crore, even as debt from banks and financial institutions fell by ₹7,220 crore over the past year. Bank debt was ₹15,080 crore as of September 2022.

Capex for the quarter stood at ₹520 crore, far less than the average quarterly spends of its larger rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, primarily due to an absense of 5G rollouts.

The company said in its quarterly report that it was in talks with various network vendors to finalise its 5G rollout strategy. “We continue to work with various partners to develop use cases and build device ecosystem,” the telco said in its earnings statement after market hours on Thursday.

The Aditya Birla Group-promoted telco, in which the Indian government is now the single largest shareholder, has been trying to raise ₹20,000 crore from external investors through debt and equity. Moondra had said in the June-quarter earnings call that Vi was in talks with three separate parties to raise funds and that the round would be completed by the December quarter.

Vi will showcase its consumer use-cases on cloud gaming, VR games and smart home solutions at the three-day India Mobile Congress starting on Friday, for which it has partnering with Deloitte India and startups iB Cricket, Yudiz Solutions and CareGame.

It will showase an immersive cloud gaming service in partnership with CareGame and a Vi AirFiber use-case – a smart home experience where all devices are connected and can experience a high-speed 5G – the company said in a separate statement on Thursday.

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Updated: 26 Oct 2023, 10:29 PM IST