Vodafone Idea on Tuesday announced its fourth quarter results ended March 2020 with the operator reporting a revenue growth of 6% on a quarterly basis. The company said that the revenue growth was largely driven by the tariff hike implemented by the telecom operators in December 2019. Vodafone Idea said that the average revenue per user (ARPU) improved to Rs 121 in the fourth quarter ended March 2020 as compared to Rs 109 in the third quarter. However, the company reported a decline in subscriber base to 291 million in the fourth quarter as compared to 304 million in the third quarter.
Vodafone Idea Reports Growth in Data Volumes
Vodafone Idea said that the company had a 4G subscriber base of 105.6 million as of March, 31, 2020. The company reported a 4G subscriber base of 104.2 million for the third quarter ended December 2019.
The total data volumes is said to have grown 7.9% to 4,090 billion MB in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, the total minutes on the network is said to have declined 1.4% in the fourth quarter with the company highlighting that the decline was due to reduction in incoming calls. The company said that the outgoing calls on its network continued to grow.
Vodafone Idea Network Integration Covers 92% Districts
Vodafone Idea said that the network integration between Vodafone and Idea “is in final stages of completion” but that the COVID-19 lockdowns has had an impact on the completion.
The company said that the integration has been completed in 92% of the total districts across India with the operator consolidating its networks in four circles during the fourth quarter. Vodafone Idea is said to have completed the network integration in UP East, UP West, Gujarat and Delhi in the fourth quarter ended March 2020.
The operator said that the network integration is complete in 18 circles and that the integration in its four remaining circles will be done “on a cluster-by-cluster basis.”
Vodafone Idea said that the excess equipment has been removed as part of its network integration from around 64,000 sites off the 73,000 co-located sites by the end of March. The company said that the move to remove excess equipment will further reduce costs.
“Our focus on rapid network integration, as well as 4G coverage and capacity expansion, has further improved customer experience,” Ravinder Takkar, MD of Vodafone Idea, said in the release. “We thus continue to lead the league tables on 4G data download speeds across several states, metros and large cities.”
