Vodafone India's Q1 revenue falls 3.4% to Rs 13,511 crore

NEW DELHI: Country’s second largest wireless operator by subscribers, Vodafone India reported a 3.4 per cent decline in its India revenue at 1,519 million pound (Rs 13,511 crore) for the first quarter ended June 2016.

"1 British Pound equals 1 British Pound equals 88.08 Indian Rupee Indian Rupee, according to Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Similarly, the company's revenue stood at 1,573 million pound in the same period a year ago.

“Service revenue growth improved to 6.4% (Q4: 5.3%) as voice revenue returned to growth and regulatory impacts reduced,” the company said in a statement.

“Excluding regulatory drags including MTR cuts, roaming price caps and an increase in service tax, service revenue grew 7.7% compared to 10.2% in the fourth quarter of the prior fiscal year. The slower pace of growth mainly reflects the reversal of the leap-year effect and lower intra circle roaming revenues,” it said.

“Data browsing revenue growth of 22.3% slowed from the pace of prior quarters, reflecting lower customer growth. Our active data customer base increased to 69.7 million customers from 66.8 million one year ago,” the company said.

“The 3G / 4G customer base grew to 32.3 million, up 46%, and smartphone penetration in our four biggest urban areas is now 54%. Voice revenues returned to growth as competition eased, despite lower average minutes of use per customer. Total mobile customers increased 1.4 million giving a closing customer base of 199.4 million,” it added

“We added 3,300 new 3G sites in the quarter, taking the total to 59,000 and our population coverage to 96% of target urban areas. We have 9,700 4G sites with coverage of 45% of our data revenues across five key circles. We expect 4G coverage to increase to over 60% of our data revenues by year-end, ahead of the upcoming spectrum auction,” a statement said.

‘We continued to make good progress during the first quarter. In Europe, our growth remains stable despite regulatory pressure on roaming revenue, with good performance in Germany, Spain and Italy while we are focussed on improving our performance in the UK. Our growth momentum in AMAP remains strong, with excellent performance in South Africa, Turkey and Egypt and ongoing recovery in India. Customers in multiple markets are attracted by our ‘more-formore’ commercial offerings of larger data bundles and extra services, while we are seeing continued success with our fixed broadband and enterprise strategies,” said Vittorio Colao, Group Chief Executive.

Preparations continue for a potential IPO of Vodafone India.