Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) is doing all it can to push customers to keep using its services. Regardless, there are many customers who have already left the telco's networks. To put in exact numbers, in 2022, Vodafone Idea lost 20 million active users. A loss of inactive users doesn't affect the financial performance of the telco. However, when the active users leave, it directly means that the revenues will be negatively affected. On Tuesday, Vodafone Idea announced its quarterly financial and performance report for Q3 FY23.
The telco's active user base at the end of Q3 FY23 was 209.6 million users. Just a year back, at the end of the same quarter (Q3 FY22), Vi's active subscriber base stood at 229.5 million. In simple words, from January 1, 2022, to December 31, 2022, Vi lost 20 million active users. While this was negative for Vi, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel benefitted. Since Vodafone Idea has not launched 5G yet, the telco's active user base is going to get affected negatively further. Those who want to use 5G will have no other option but to leave Vi's networks and go to either Airtel or Jio for mobile network services.
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If we just talk about the subscriber base, in 2022, Vi lost 18.6 million users. From 247.2 million at the end of Q3 FY22, the subscriber base of the struggling telco stood at 228.6 million at the end of Q3 FY23.
Vodafone Idea's Prepaid Offers are Clearly Not Working
Vodafone Idea provides its users with the best-prepaid offers in the Indian telecom market. The Hero Unlimited offer from the telco is just a treat for the customers. Despite that, the users are not staying in the telco's network. It is indicative of the fact that users don't just want great offers; they want a great network experience as well.
Opensignal's report focused on the Indian market is just saying the same thing for two years now. While Vi delivers great download and upload speeds, it lags in other key experience areas such as gaming experience, 4G coverage, 4G availability, video experience and more when compared to Airtel and Jio.
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The issue is that Vi has limited resources at the moment. The telco's cash flow situation is really bad, and it would take time for the company to improve in different areas as it has been unsuccessful in raising funds for several years now.
