Vodafone Idea shines by lowering Opex and improving EBITDA

Vodafone Idea said its revenue fell to INR 107,912 million in Q2 fiscal 2020-21 as compared with INR 108,440 million in Q2 fiscal 2019-20.
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Vodafone Idea has lowered its Opex to INR 66,388 million in Q2 fiscal 2020-21 as compared with INR 74,484 million in Q2 fiscal 2019-20.

Vodafone Idea’s EBITDA touched INR 41,524 million vs INR 33,956 million. EBITDA margin was 38.5 percent vs 31.3 percent.

Vodafone Idea’s Capex spend in Q2FY21 was Rs 10.4 billion as against Rs 6 billion in Q1FY21.

Total data subscribers (2G+3G+4G) decreased to 137.5 mn from 140.3 mn.

The number of mobile broadband subscribers on Vodafone Idea’s 3G and 4G networks has touched 119.8 million from 112.2 million.

4G subscribers of Vodafone Idea increased to 106.1 million from 95.9 million.

Vodafone Idea plans to achieve Rs 40 billion of annualized cost savings over 18 months. As of Q2FY21, Vodafone Idea already achieved ~25 percent of the targeted annualised cost savings. Vodafone Idea has also achieved targeted merger Opex synergies of Rs 84 billion.

Vodafone Idea said subscriber base declined to 271.8 million in Q2FY21 from 279.8 million in Q1FY21. The subscriber churn increased to 2.6 percent vs 2 percent in Q1FY21.
ARPU for Q2FY21 improved to Rs 119 compared to Rs 114 in Q1FY21.

Vodafone Idea has added ~10,000 4G FDD sites primarily through refarming of 2G/3G spectrum to expand 4G capacity. Vodafone Idea also made progress in implementing LTE 900 in select locations, including through dynamic spectrum refarming, to improve customer experience.

Vodafone Idea deployed ~61,300 TDD sites in addition to deployment of ~12,400 Massive MIMO sites and ~11,800 small cells till date. Overall broadband site count stood at 457,386 as of Q2FY21 compared to 446,131 in Q1FY21, with 4G coverage to ~1 billion Indians.

As per Ookla, Vodafone Idea has the fastest 4G network in India, a significant improvement compared to having fastest speed in 3 circles of Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal a year ago.

Vodafone Idea has a total of 1,846 MHz of spectrum across difference frequency bands out of which 1,723.6 MHz spectrum is liberalised and can be used towards deployment of any technology (2G, 3G, 4G or 5G). Further, 1,316.8 MHz of spectrum acquired through auction between year 2014 and 2016 is having the validity until 2034 to 2036.

The company has presence in over 180,000 locations and has 457,000 broadband (3G+4G) sites. Its 4G population coverage is ~1 billion Indians as of September 30, 2020. The company has a portfolio of over ~370,600 km of OFC including own built, IRU OFC and common routes.