Vodafone Idea Q1 FY26: What You Must Know

vodafone idea q1 fy26 what must know (1)

Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL), the third-largest Indian telecom operator, has recently announced Q1 FY26 results. Things are very interesting here, and at the same time, they are not. Vi’s CEO, Akshaya Moondra said that they saw 90% lower subscriber loss compared to Q2 and Q3 of the last financial year, but that seems like a very focused approach of finding a positive needle in a haystack of negatives. While there’s nothing wrong with that (a company wouldn’t outright come and say we are in a hard position), we need to see what are the challenges that the telco still faces and what doesn’t sit right with the Q1 results.

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Vodafone Idea Q1 FY26 Loss Widens Compared to Previous Quarter

Vodafone Idea’s Q1 FY26 loss widened to Rs 6,608 crore compared to Rs 6,432 crore in the previous quarter. This happened despite rising average revenue per user (ARPU) and 4G/5G subscriber base. We will come to ARPU soon enough. The EBITDA margin has fallen from 42.3% to 41.8% QoQ (Quarter on Quarter). The revenues stayed almost flat at Rs 11,022 crore. This is concerning.

Vodafone Idea Sees ARPU Improvement, 4G/5G Susbcriber Base Goes Up

In Q1 FY26, Vodafone Idea saw that its mobile customer ARPU went up to Rs 177 from Rs 175 in the previous quarter. For the last three quarters, the ARPU has shuffled from Rs 173 to Rs 177. This is not good enough, especially when the prices of Vi’s plans are at par with Airtel. Despite that, the telco is barely even registering any ARPU growth. This is concerning too.

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Let’s now talk about the 4G/5G subscriber base. The 4G population coverage went up from 82.7% in the previous quarte to 84.1% in Q1 FY26. This is decent, and the total 4G/5G subscriber base increased from 126.4 million to 127.4 million, which is again, barely any growth. To see any material growth in ARPU, Vi needs to increase its 4G/5G subscriber base. For that, the telco is investing in the networks.