Vodafone India FY'12 net up 14%

Vodafone today posted a net profit of Rs 9,749 crore, up almost 14% from its Indian operations. The company attributed this surge in profit to rising customer base and strong growth in average voice call minutes. The Indian arm of the British telecom firm had posted a net profit of Rs8,609 crore in the previous fiscal.

The Group's revenue from Indian operations surged to 4.26 billion pounds in 2011-12 compared to 3.85 billion pounds a year back. The company said its robust earnings from India's operations came from service revenue as well as impacted by its igher customer base. The growth also came from mobile operators starting to charge for SMS termination during the second quarter of the 2012 financial year.

"Service revenue grew by 19.5 per cent, driven by an 11.8 per cent increase in the customer base, strong growth in incoming and outgoing voice minutes and 51.3 per cent growth in data revenue," Vodafone said.

At 31 March 2012 the customer base had increased to 150.5 million, with data customers totaling 35.4 million, a year-on-year increase of 81.5%. This was driven by an increase in data enabled handsets and the impact of successful marketing campaigns. Whilst the market remains highly competitive, the effective rate per minute remained broadly stable during the year, with promotional offers offsetting headline price increases, the company said in a statement.

Vodafone said its adjusted operating profit from India business was 60 million pounds in 12-months ended March 2012 as compared to 15 pounds in the previous year.
The British telecom entity also said that by the end of last fiscal, 3G services were available to in 860 towns and cities across 20 circles.