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Shares of India’s biggest telco plummeted by 25% upon release of the company’s Q1 financial report
India’s biggest telco, Vodafone Idea, has shed 14.1 million subscribers in the first quarter of the current financial year, with the company’s share price plummeting on some challenging financial results.
Vodafone Idea blamed the decline on the introduction of service validity vouchers in the previous quarter. The company said that its higher return long term subscriber base had remained broadly stable.
On a positive note, Vodafone Idea was able to 4.1 million subscribers to its 4G customer case, taking its overall customer base to 84.8 million subscribers.
“As we continue to integrate our networks, our customers’ data experience is significantly improving in most services areas and we now lead the league tables on data download speeds in Delhi, West Bengal and Chennai. We remain focused on expanding our 4G coverage to over a billion Indians as well as expanding our data capacities by adding more sites on TDD and deploying Massive MIMO," said Balesh Sharma, CEO Vodafone Idea limited.
The company’s share price fell by 25 per cent per cent upon release of its Q1 financial report, as markets baulked at its diminishing customer base. Vodafone Idea’s share price fell from INR9.30 to just INR6.90 on Monday.
“We are delivering on our stated strategy although the benefits are not yet visible in our top line… We are well on track to deliver our synergy targets by Q1FY21. We expect these factors to increasingly contribute to our financial performance going forward," Sharma added.
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