Vodafone reports 3.4pc drop in Q3 revenue

Vodafone India has reported a 3.4 percent fall in revenue to 1.57 billion pounds (around Rs 13,900 crore) for the three months to June despite an over 22 percent rise in data income — bogged down by fall in rupee and income due to regulations.

Vodafone’s service revenue growth improved to 6.4 percent as against 5.3 percent in the previous quarter as voice revenue returned to growth and regulatory impacts came down, the London-based company said in a statement.

The data revenue growth has also suffered in the quarter, the company said, “Data browsing revenue growth of 22.3 percent slowed from the pace of prior quarters, reflecting lower customer growth. Our active data customer base increased to 69.7 million customers from 66.8 million one year ago.”

Excluding regulatory drags, including MTR cuts, roaming price caps and an increase in service tax, service revenue grew 7.7 percent compared to 10.2 percent in the fourth quarter of the prior fiscal year, the company said.

Also, 3G/4G customer base grew by 46 percent to 32.3 million, and smartphone penetration in its four biggest urban circles touched 54 percent. Voice revenue returned to growth as competition eased, despite lower average minutes of use per customer. Total mobile customers rose 1.4 million giving a closing customer base of 199.4 million as of end June.

“We added 3,300 new 3G sites in the quarter, taking the total to 59,000 and our population coverage to 96 per cent of target urban areas. We have 9,700 4G sites with coverage of 45 percent of our data revenues across five key circles. We expect 4G coverage to increase to over 60 per cent of our data revenues by year-end, ahead of the upcoming spectrum auction,” the statement added.