Vodafone India's FY18 operating profit at Rs 98 bn, data traffic up 4 times

Vodafone India continues to face tariff war heat and reported 18.7% decline in organic service revenue to around Rs 350.45 billion in 2017-18

Vodafone India on Monday posted operating profit of Rs 98.05 billion for the financial year 2017-18, ended March 31.

It had reported a loss of around Rs 306.90 billion for 2016-17 on account of the UK-based Vodafone group cutting down the valuation of Indian unit by taking gross impairment charge of 4.5 billion euros.

Vodafone, which is in the process of merging with Idea, expects the process to be completed by June, possibly making the latest results the last on standalone basis.

Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao said at a web conference that both the companies have already starting branding exercise for the new entity.

Vodafone India continues to face tariff war heat and reported 18.7 per cent decline in organic service revenue to around Rs 350.45 billion in 2017-18 compared to Rs 429.27 billion service revenue registered in the preceding fiscal.

"Intense competition is euphemism. There was 86 per cent decline in data price on year-on-year basis. Good news is that we have got 10 million customers in last quarter but there is a price to be paid for this success," Colao said.

Data traffic on network of Vodafone India increased four-fold but the company could not reap financial benefits because of sharp decline in data prices.

The reduction in mobile termination rates added to the woes of the company.

"Losses continued in India as service revenue declined 18.7 per cent as a result of intense price competition from the new entrant, aggressive competitor responses and a significant reduction in MTRs (mobile termination rates)," Vodafone said.

It added that the impact of lower revenues was partially offset by significant actions to lower our operating cost base, as well as the benefit of a provision release in the fourth quarter following positive legal judgements.

The net debt of Vodafone India stood at Rs 581.19 billion or 7.7 billion euro at the end of the period, down from Rs 640.14 billion (8.7 billion euro) at the end of the prior financial year due to the positive translation impact of closing foreign exchange rates on the debt balance of 1.2 billion euro and proceeds of Rs 38.50 billion from the sale of Vodafone India's standalone towers to American Tower Corporation.

"Following the completion of Idea's equity raising in February 2018, under the terms of the merger agreement with Idea the Group intends to inject up to 1 billion euro (around Rs 75 billion) of incremental equity into India, net of the proceeds of the sale of a stake in the joint venture to the Aditya Birla Group (ABG), prior to completion," Vodafone said.

Vodafone Group did not include India business in their financial performance.