Vodafone Idea (Vi), the third-largest telecom operator in the country, has barely managed to add 4G subscribers in FY24. Although, it was the same case for FY23. For the last two years, Vi has not been able to accelerate 4G subscriber addition, and at the same time, kept losing active subscribers to competitors. The telco recently announced its Q4 FY24 results, and while the revenues were almost flat/consistent with the previous few quarters, the loss widened compared to the same quarter the previous year. Take a detailed look at the results via the below link.
Read More - Vodafone Idea Q4 FY24 Results: ARPU at Rs 146, Loss at Rs 7675 Crore
Vodafone Idea 4G Subscriber Addition
Vodafone Idea's 4G subscriber stood at 122.6 million during Q4 FY23, and it reached 126.3 million at the end of Q4 FY24. This means Vi added 3.7 million 4G subscribers in the entire year. To compare, Airtel and Jio added more 4G users (on average) than this in a single quarter. In FY23, Vi added 4.5 million 4G subscribers. So it is evident that the pace at which Vi was earlier adding 4G subscribers has gone down.
In two financial years, Vi has added a total of 8.2 million 4G subscribers. But in FY24 alone, Vi lost 14.6 million active subscribers, taking the active user base down to 193.3 million. At the end of FY24, approximately 60% of the total user base of Vi is 4G, while the remaining are legacy network users.
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The total broadband sites for Vi were reduced in FY24. From 443,537 broadband sites at the end of Q4 FY23, the total sites came down to 430,705. But this could be due to the removal of the 3G network from six circles.
Vi's blended churn came down from 4.3% in the previous quarter to 3.9%. However, it still remains high and needs to go down for Vi to be able to sustain in the long run.
The telco's ARPU (average revenue per user) stood at Rs 146 for Q4 FY24. Compared to rivals, Vi lags severly behind, despite offering high priced plans similar to Bharti Airtel. This is due to having a large low paying customer base that is utilising legacy network.
