Vodafone Idea Limited released its reports for the Q1 of Financial Year 2021. Looking at the report, it seems like things didn’t go VIL’s way as much as the telco would have wanted. In its report, VIL highlighted that they have provided uninterrupted services to both their enterprise and retail customers despite the unprecedented times. But the telco had to pay the cost of slow down of the economy due to global pandemic. VIL faced a quarterly loss and also saw a decrease in the number of total subscribers compared to the previous quarter. Along with that, the telco also witnessed a reduction of ARPU.
Lesser ARPU than Previous Quarter
In its Q1 FY21 report, Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) reported that their average revenue per user (ARPU) declined from Rs 121 in the Q4 FY20 to Rs 114. Along with that, the telco lost 11.3 million subscribers on the quarter and now has 279.8 million subscribers as compared to 291.1 million subscribers in the Q4 FY20. Out of these, 104.6 million subscribers are 4G customers of the telco. VIL’s revenue for the quarter declined by 9.3% to Rs 106.6 billion.
But it wasn’t all bad. There were some positives reflected in the report as well. VIL witnessed a strong data volume growth of 10.6% which is the highest in the previous 6 quarters. Going with the report, data usage per broadband subscriber increased to 13GB every month which is a good sign for the telco.
Along with that, the surge in data volume was handled efficiently by the telco post-integration of Vodafone and Idea services. VIL provided the fastest 4G download speeds in the following telecom circles — West Bengal, Mumbai, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, and Madhya Pradesh in Q1’21.
The telco’s 4G coverage has increased to 1 billion compared to 916 million last year. This has been possible because of the expansion of 4G services throughout the country. VIL added 13,000 4G FDD sites simply by reframing the 2G/3G spectrum to expand its 4G operations. The overall broadband site count for the telco stands at 4,46,131 in Q1 FY21 as compared to 4,36,006 in Q4 FY20.
