Vodafone Idea Ltd
NSE:IDEA
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Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Nirav, the moderator for your conference call. Welcome to the Vodafone Idea Limited conference. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. We have with us today, Mr. Akshaya Moondra, CEO of Vodafone Idea Limited; and Mr. Murthy GVAS, CFO of Vodafone Idea Limited, along with other key members of the senior management on this call.
I want to thank the management team on behalf of all the participants for taking valuable time to be with us. Given that the senior management is on this conference call, participants are requested to focus on key strategic and important questions to make sure that we make good use of the senior management's time. I must remind you that discussion on today's call may include certain forward-looking statements and must be viewed, therefore, in conjunction with the risk that the company faces.
With this, I now hand the conference call over to Mr. Akshaya Moondra. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Nirav. A warm welcome to all participants to this earnings call. On Monday, our Board of Directors adopted the audited results for the quarter ending June 30, 2023. All the results-related documents are available on the website, and I hope you had a chance to go through the same.
Let me provide a brief on our strategic initiatives and key highlights for the quarter. Post this, I will hand over to Murthy to share details of the company's financial performance.
Our first strategic initiative is our focused investment approach. We continue to follow a focused approach to investments biased towards our 17 priority circles, which contribute over 98% of our revenue and around 93% of industry revenues. This helps us in utilizing our CapEx effectively while ensuring that we continue to offer superior customer experience in these areas as our network investments have been impacted on account of liquidity constraints.
Despite this, over the last 1 year, we have added more than 1,500 unique 4G towers and about 13,400 4G broadband sites. As a result, our broadband coverage as well as capacity has expanded. In our relentless pursuit to offer better 4G experience to our customers, we took upon a challenge to cater to the crucial connectivity requirement for the constantly moving Mumbaikars. We partnered with the best human network, the Dabbawalas, to test and improve the network for offering a superior network experience to its users. We got them to [indiscernible] to Vi GIGAnet to understand where the network was seamless and where it needed strengthening on parameters such as data, voice calling, video streaming, gaming, et cetera. The team travels the length and breadth from Mumbai City, testing the network strength of Vi GIGAnet across 22 wards and over 550 locations. Based on their feedback, a team of Vi network engineers continue to reinforce the network and the locations having weaker experience.
Today, we are confident that we offer superior network connectivity even in the nooks and corners of the city and the Dabbawalas are testimony to it. We also have the highest rated voice quality in the country, as per TRAI MyCall app data for 28 out of 32 months between November '20 and June 2023.
Moving on to market initiatives. Our brand, Vi, continues to go on a good reception, building brand affinity across all customer segments in the country. The company continues to make extensive progress on the marketing front by communicating key differentiators to consumers entering into alliances and introducing various innovative products and services. With the holiday season, we promoted its international roaming packs with Truly unlimited data and calls on Digital. It is important to note that Vi is the only telecom operator in the country to offer truly unlimited data and call benefits on international roaming. Our unique night data pack Chhota Hero was launched to allow customers to snack on content during the night with unlimited data. At The MOMMY's 2023 Awards, we won Best Social Media Brand Telecom and Best Use of Memes. At AFAQS Marketers' Excellence Awards 2023, we won 5 awards: 1 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze in the categories of Best Use of Influencer Marketing, Best Use of Instagram, Best Use of Short-form Video, Best Performance Marketing and Best Use of Influencer on YouTube.
We continue to focus on getting more customers on 4G/unlimited plans for further ARPU improvements. We have seen ARPU growth for 8 consecutive quarters now. Q1 FY '24 ARPU stands at INR 139 compared to INR 135 in Q4 FY '23, a growth of 2.9% quarter-on-quarter. You may recollect that in May, we had piloted change in entry-level pricing, where the validity of INR 99 plan was reduced from 28 days to 15 days in Mumbai. We have expanded this to 11 circles now, and we continue to observe the space and will make further interventions as we go forward. It is pertinent to note that there is no impact on ARPU in Q1 FY '24 as these changes were introduced in further 2 circles only by end of June and in other circles post the end of Q1. That said, tariff rationalization on the higher usage plans and moving to a structure of paying more for using more remains critical to ensure the operators make reasonable returns on their massive network and spectrum investments.
Moving on to Business Services. Business Services or Enterprise segment is one of our strength areas, owing to our long-standing relationships with our enterprise customers as well as our ability to leverage from the experience of Vodafone Group in various global markets. We continue to make progress in line with our stated strategy of transformation from Telco to Techco for our enterprise offerings. Our planned expansion of services beyond connectivity has seen good traction, and we continue to work with multiple partners to make our offerings more relevant to our enterprise customers.
We continue to strengthen our focus on the MSME segment. On World MSME Day 2023, we reiterated our commitment to capitalize the digitalization of MSME for enabling inclusive growth of the Indian economy by launching our 360-degree program, ReadyForNext2.0. The program supports MSMEs and digital adoption, transforming their businesses and helping them unlock the growth potential of their business. Vi Business launched the unlocking MSME Growth in Sites report. This report was a submission of the insights captured over the last 1 year of running the assessment tool, covering nearly 1 lakh respondents across 16 industries. The report also helps businesses to understand their own digital maturity and also of the industry that they compete in.
ReadyForNext2.0 digital self-evaluation tool is an enhanced version with a more dynamic and personalized assessment, which is focused on the MSME industry, and annual turnover of the specific enterprise customer. With solutions like Vi App, e-mail and device security, our exclusive MSME offerings are tailormade to enhance productivity, collaboration, customer reach and security in today's digital era.
To address the growing need for reliable and secure networking solutions, Vi Business has launched Hybrid SD-WAN and enhanced proposition design and collaboration with global tech leaders. Vi Hybrid SD-WAN helps businesses simplify and optimize their network infrastructure and enhance their security posture, while ensuring cost efficiency.
The next strategic initiative is driving partnerships and digital revenue streams. We have set a strong digital road map for the company and have been executing the same through strategic partnerships and our continuing journey of being a truly integrated digital services provider. Over the last few quarters, we have significantly expanded our digital portfolio with the addition of music and video streaming, gaming and e-sports, jobs, education and digital advertising. And we continue to add various features to our offerings. We are primarily building most of these offerings on Vi App, which saw almost 25% year-on-year growth in daily users.
We have seen a strong traction on each of the digital services during the year. Recently, we launched a converged proposition, Vi One, bundling mobility, fiber and over-the-top subscriptions, bringing convenience and value to the customers under a single plan. It is an industry first for prepaid market. It has been launched in 12 cities across 3 circles of Mumbai, Maharashtra and Gujarat. While we are currently testing this out with our own subsidiary, You Broadband, we shall soon roll out this proposition in other markets in partnership with other broadband players.
Amongst the existing categories, while we continue to drive scale on our existing propositions on music and video, we are also working aggressively to have a strong proposition for the connected TV segment to get the next leap of growth, particularly to fuel monetization. Similarly, on gaming, we have an exciting pipeline with a set of new partners coming onboard to help accelerate the growth on both user adoption and engagement. We shall announce the same in this quarter. Based on overall transformation, the Vi App and Vi Movies and TV app saw last year, we have seen significant improvement in our customer ratings on Playstore, taking our app ratings to one of the best in the industry. We continue to maintain the same trend.
Vi Ads, our adtech platform, continues to grow with newer brands coming on board as well as healthy trends on sustained campaigns from some of our key advertiser brands. Given our focus on the SME segment for Vi Ads, we also had Vi Ads as one of the key offerings into the MSME program, ReadyForNext, that we launched on the MSME Day. We would like to reinforce that we continue to have a disproportionate focus to build a digital ecosystem with our partners, enabling a differentiated experience for Vi users, which will help us to drive customer stickiness as well as provide incremental monetization opportunities.
Moving on to other highlights. When we look at the industry revenue trend over the last few years, industry revenues are growing primarily due to regular price increases and customer upgrades. We also, for the first time since merger, witnessed annual revenue growth of almost 10% last year. We are confident that with the investments coming on stream, we will be able to make more meaningful movements in our overall performance and participate in the growth opportunities. During the quarter, we registered improving 4G subscriber base for eighth quarter in a row, and the 4G base now stands at 122.9 million. However, the overall subscriber base declined to 221.4 million versus 225.9 million in Q4 FY '23. Despite subscriber loss, we registered the eighth quarter of sequential growth in average daily revenue for the quarter.
Revenue for the quarter stood at INR 106.6 billion, a Q-on-Q improvement of 1.2%, aided by improvement in subscriber mix and 4G subscriber additions. ARPU improved to INR 139, up 2.9% quarter-on-quarter versus INR 135 in Q4 FY '23, primarily aided by 2G to 4G upgrade and migration of subscribers to higher ARPU plans. This was also supported by growth in international roaming revenues. The overall data volumes were up 3.5% quarter-on-quarter, and we continue to see the increase in the data usage of broadband customer, which now stands at about 15.7 GB per month. We have also seen an increase in voice minutes per sub for the third successful quarter.
With that, I hand over to Murthy, who will share the financial highlights for the quarter.
Thank you, Akshaya. A warm welcome to each of you. As mentioned by Akshaya, we'll continue on our average daily revenue growth journey for the eighth straight quarter with quarterly revenues of INR 106.6 billion, registered a quarter-on-quarter improvement of 1.2%. This is also the eighth consecutive quarter of growth in ARPU and 4G subscribers. Quarterly EBITDA, excluding IndAS116 impact, was INR 20.2 billion compared to this INR 20.7 billion in quarter 4 FY '23, largely lower primarily due to higher network expense on account of seasonality and SG&A costs, partially offset by reduction in roaming and access charges. The increase in SG&A charge is on account of higher amortization due to the downward revision of life of subscribers when the actual cost incurred has reduced quarter-on-quarter.
Excluding the impact of IndAS116, the depreciation of moderation expense and net finance cost for the quarter stood at INR 41.7 billion and INR 54.6 billion. The reported post-IndAS116 depreciation and amortization expenses and net finance cost for the quarter stood at INR 56.2 billion and INR 63.8 billion, respectively. As explained last -- during the last quarter earnings call, quarter 4 FY '23 had a onetime impact of reversal on account of accrued interest due to the government's equity conversion. The CapEx spend for the quarter stands at INR 4.5 billion.
The total gross debt, excluding lease liabilities and including interest accrued but not due as of 30 June 2023, stood at INR 2,117.6 billion, comprising of deferred spectrum payment obligations of INR 1,337.4 billion, and AGR liability of INR 668.6 billion that are due to the government, debt from banks and financial institutions of INR 95 billion and optionally Convertible Debentures amounting to INR 16.6 billion. With a cash and cash equivalent of INR 2.5 billion, the net debt stood at INR 2,115.1 billion. It's important to note that the debt from banks and financial institutions has reduced by INR 57 billion during the last 1 year.
Further, we have submitted letter to DoT that we propose to pay the spectrum auction installments of be INR [ 1,680 ] crores towards the 2020 auction, which is due on the 17th of August '23 by rolling the grace speed of 30 days with interest in accordance with the terms of the NIA.
With this, I'll hand over the call back to Nirav and open the floor for questions.
[Operator Instructions] First question is from the line of Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities.
First question is on the minimum recharge. Now that we have rolled it in 11 circles, how has been the initial impact of it on the subscriber churn rate, acceptance rate? And what is the potential benefit to the revenue we could see over a period of time because of this?
Thanks, Sanjesh, for the question. Actually, I would just want to add that we have actually expanded it to 12 circles. But in the 12 circle, the structure was a little different, and that's why we set that to 11 circles. So in Haryana, we had done somewhat differently. Now this has definitely given us in this quarter, which is, I mean, in the current quarter, a positive revenue uplift net of the impact of some loss of subscribers. And I would say that the impact on the subscribers initial period, it is not very much, but we will have to observe it for a longer period of time. And hence, I will not be able to kind of quantify the benefit of this. But definitely, we have had this in Mumbai for about 3 months now. Even after 3 months, this is showing a positive impact. In the other circles, this was launched later. But the circles which have been launched later have a higher component of these subscribers and definitely, that will give us benefit going forward. I hope that answers your question.
What have we done different in the Haryana circle?
So in the other circles, we had said that the pricing point of INR 99, the validity was reduced from 28 days to 15 days. In the Haryana, we had actually removed the INR 99 price point and introduced an interim price point with the same benefits and with the validity of 28 day. I think that price point was about INR 127. This, we had done as a trial in a one circle.
Okay, okay. Got it, got it. Second, on the comment which you initially made that we need to charge the customer as they use more pay more kind of a structure. This has been in discussion now for many years. While we have seen that unlimited remains the majority of the subscriber at least on the 4G and 5G, again, we have gone to the unlimited data pack, which is exactly opposite to what we have been talking, do you expect in the near term, say, in a year or 2, we will go to a more peer plant structure and unlimited will be for the higher end of ARPUs? Is it really a possibility or it just an ambitious expectation?
I mean, I would say this is a very high possibility. You have heard at least 2 players specifically saying that, that is the right way to go. And I would just say that I think today also, these are not unlimited in nature. You have a limit of 1 GB per day or 1.5 GB per day. I think the only point I want to highlight, which I have kind of mentioned in my earlier calls also is that today, we are equalizing the price in a way for somebody who uses in a wide range of 5, 6 GB per month to 28 GB per month. And that is where we believe that this is not the correct pricing structure. And the basic philosophy behind this is that I think at the entry level pricing, significant changes have happened over a period of time. And we believe that now the requirement is that pay as you use more should actually start applying. And the compression of the ARPU range that we have seen in the last few years, where I think if I were to just say generally, the ARPU range starts just from 0 because you could stay on the network without paying anything to a level of as high as INR 1,500 to INR 2,000.
Now that has largely compressed today to a level of INR 100 or INR 150, I mean, you pay for the GST from there and almost everybody can meet their needs at a plan of INR 500, INR 600. So I think at the entry level significant improvement has happened, which is good. But at the upper end for higher uses, the ARPU levels need to go. And I believe this will happen for sure as we start rationalizing the tariffs.
Got it. The next question is on the postpaid category. We have seen, again, increased competitive intensity there in this quarter. And one of your peers is aggressively pushing the converged plan. While we have been protecting our postpaid customer, how is the postpaid customer not reacting to the competitive intensity? And are we worried because we cannot offer that kind of a converged planning over a medium term on the postpaid subscriber base?
So on the postpaid, you would have seen that there is a marginal improvement we have seen. So it is not that we are, in fact, postpaid. While there's an overall decline in subscribers, postpaid, we have seen a marginal improvement. This is somewhat coming from M2M. On the consumer side, it is kind of being more flattish. But I would say that we are holding on to our postpaid base. I know converged offering as its benefits. But until now, we have not seen it making any significant impact on the market as such, the subscriber behavior as such in terms of movement of subscribers. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we have also kind of launched Vi One, where we are offering broadband plus mobility plus content with our own subsidiary, and we also intend to expand it with other broadband fiber-to-home players. And so we will also have this offering, I think it's a means of attracting customers, but I don't think it has contributed to churn in any significant manner.
Got it. The next question is on the customer loss. It was somewhat low last quarter, but we have again jumped back to that INR 5 million, INR 6 million run rate we had for many, many quarters. When do you think this can sustainably decelerate and we go to a positive territory or until you think that we invest significant into the network that looks a tough task?
I think we are doing interventions. Last quarter, we saw a good result. I think it was somewhat helped by the fact that competition had raised tariffs and we followed later on. So maybe last quarter was better. But definitely, I mean, compared to the figure of INR 6 million where we were before that, we are down to INR 4.5 million. So there is some improvement. And we will continue to make efforts to reduce this. But any significant improvement, whereby we can arrest this completely and start participating in the industry growth, I think that will require us to expand our 4G coverage and invest in 5G. So that, I think, is kind of essential for this to be changing the direction from negative to positive.
Last question from my side is on the finance costs. I thought once we have converted the interest on interest on the equity, this was supposed to settle at lower than INR 63 billion kind of run rate, which was there until Q3. But again, we are back to the INR 63 billion. Why has the finance cost gone up? I think that conversion to equity would have taken some pressure of finance costs, right?
So Sanjesh, as we explained last time in last quarter, so the accrued interest for over 9 months was reversed, and therefore, what's coming in now is the [indiscernible] cost. And therefore, the benefit that of reversal that happened last quarter is not available this quarter. That was more of a one time, and that's the reason why I mentioned that even in my remarks.
No, no, that is fair enough, but...
Sanjesh, what you're saying is right that the conversion will impact and will reduce the financing costs to the extent that is converted into equity. So that sense is correct and that is reflecting in our financing costs. And maybe you can have a separate off-line discussion with us so that we can explain you because finance cost is a lot of these M2M movements, which can kind of make -- not make them comparable. But the conversion does reduce the interest version, that point that you're making is absolutely correct.
Next question is from the line of Aditya Suresh from Macquarie Group.
Mr. Akshaya, I had 2 questions. The first was more strategic. I'm trying to understand what's guiding your spending choices? And I guess the specific question was about sales and marketing versus CapEx. So when I look at sales and marketing, absolute spends have been steady over the past 3 quarters, the absolute level of spend in sales is now more than twice that on CapEx, it is also kind of much higher compared to any time in the past 5 years. So can you help throw some light on this in terms of what's guiding the choices here in terms of spending sales, marketing versus CapEx?
Okay. Did you have one more question? Or this is the only question here?
The second question was more on cash flows, where I was hoping for, if at all possible to get a number on what was CFO less CapEx, less lease and less interest payments in this quarter?
So let me answer the first question, and I'll understand the second question after I answer the first question. So you say the comparison which you're making between SG&A and CapEx is not so much a question of choice. When you're looking at the SG&A expense, you have to be competitive in the market. And I think the current SG&A costs reflect the market intensity. However, you would have noted, and I think as Murthy had explained in his opening comments, that some of the P&L charge of these expenses have been impacted because of the change in life of customer. But quarter-on-quarter in absolute terms, these costs have reduced for us from Q4 to Q1. And also, we had reduced these costs from Q3 to Q4. So for, I think, 2 successful quarters, we have actually reduced the cash costs in this category.
However, we have to be competitive in the market. But I think the interventions we've made to focus on quality of customer and eliminate some ways there has given us positive results in being able to contain that cost. If you are not competitive on that front, then ultimately you will see a challenge on the revenue growth, which will suffer. So it's not so much a trade-off. Our current CapEx is based on our current liquidity situation. But we are in the process of making funding arrangements. And once we are back to investment, as I mentioned, I don't see any reason why that will not help us to kind of grow our business and start participating in the industry growth.
Great. And the second, just to clarify, I was hoping for an update on the cash flow statement. So is there a number which you are able to share on cash from operations less your CapEx, interest and lease payments?
You mentioned lease payments, what -- I mean, let me just tell you that while our reported financials are based on lease accounting 116, we also, in our quarterly report, gave data which is more reflective of cash EBITDA. And to that extent, our cash EBITDA has been north of INR 20 billion for the last few quarters. So that represents the cash generation. I think the CapEx figures are also reflected. This quarter, it was INR 2.5 billion. That is the actual CapEx incurred, but the actual cash outflow, again, that is much lesser. So financing cost, I think, broadly speaking, the cash outflow would be in the region of INR 3 billion to INR 4 billion in the quarter.
Okay. I guess the real heart of the question was actually I was trying to understand like how -- are we able to get to pay our suppliers and have the organic needs to do that? And based on your answer, it seems like on the cash basis we can continue to pay our suppliers and remain in operations while we're kind of looking for that external funding.
Okay. So Aditya, I think just to be clear that we have had an accumulation of vendor payments, which was kind of reflected in our financials. This particular quarter, which is Q2, we had significant payments of debt for which, as we have disclosed to the stock exchange, we have received a letter of support from the promoters also of up to INR 2,000 crores or INR 20 billion, so that is there. With the cash generation and with that support from the promoters, we will be able to manage our payments in this quarter.
From next quarter, actually, our debt servicing burden goes down significantly. So we are roughly at the level of INR 5 billion in the next quarter for debt servicing, followed by about INR 17 billion in the following quarter and another INR 5 billion. So if you look at over the next 3 quarters following this quarter, our debt servicing is only INR 27 billion as against our cash generation in the same period of about INR 60 billion. So once we are through with this quarter and we are be able to manage our payments with the help of the support from promoters and also some nonoperational cash inflows, which we are looking at, we will be able to then manage and kind of start unwinding the vendor dues from the next quarter.
[Operator Instructions] Next question is from the line of Hemang from Anvil Shares.
Sir, what is the status of the funding that we are going to tie up with the promoter and nonpromoter? And any incremental debt funding? That was my first question. And second question, on the CapEx front. So if we are not getting the funding upfront for 1 or 2 quarters, so what would be the CapEx guidance for the current year? That was 2 questions I have.
So thanks, Hemang, for the question. On the funding, I had given some commentary last quarter. I would say that in the last 2 months, our discussions with multiple groups of investors on both equity and equity-linked instruments has progressed. It has gained a lot of momentum, and we have seen a very good progress in the last couple of months, particularly in the last 1 month where some of these discussions have started progressing to a level of due diligence or proposals being discussed with these investors. I think we are making good progress, and we expect to conclude these discussions in the coming quarter. So that is as far as the equity funding is concerned.
As far as debt funding is concerned, we have been engaged with a consortium of banks for a long time. I think generally, they ask us that the equity also needs to be tied up. So as we already disclosed that the promoters have already given a support for INR 2,000 crores of equity, some external equity needs to be tied up. And with that, the bank funding will also be tied up. So we expect to conclude all these funding arrangement in the coming quarters. And once that happens, then we will be able to continue our investments. Any specific CapEx guidance, we will be able to give only after that was tied up. Until then, I think our current level of CapEx, which we are incurring in the last quarter, would be a representative level of CapEx for us.
[Operator Instructions] Next question is from the line of Aliasgar from Motilal Oswal.
First question was on the subscriber churn. Now I see that in this quarter as well as in the last few quarters, the churn is mostly at the overall level, while 4G and data customers have kind of remained flattish to -- in fact seen moderate growth. So if you could just give some color, this subscriber churn, is it happening in basically feature phone customers who may -- I don't know, whether they are consolidating with the tariff increase we have taken in recharge vouchers? Or is it typically the smartphone customers who may be probably churning out probably if they are upgrading to a data or 4G connection? So if you could just give some color in terms of where is this churn basically that we are seeing?
So you see at some level, the churn happens across the ARPU levels and across all kinds of users, and some of this is rotational churn as you would see in the industry, so that churn is across both. But if you see where is it skewed, the fact that our ARPUs continue to increase, our 4G subscribers continue to increase, that is a reflection of the fact that the churn is more skewed towards the lower ARPU subscribers. And as you said that as the entry-level prices kind of start increasing at the minimum participation price, you would see some consolidation of dual SIMs happening, although that was not the factor for us in the Q1 because we had just done this for any significant period of time only in Mumbai. But I think at an industry level, that would be a factor. But mainly to answer your question, it is skewed towards the lower ARPU categories of subscribers for us.
Got it. Okay. So I mean, just a quick follow-up. Basically, we're not really seeing customers moving out probably as they upgrade to 4G. I don't know if we are able to track that.
I mean, we are able to track that. As I said, there is addition of subscribers in all categories. There is churn of subscriber in all categories. The overall industry churn is much higher. I mean that's the nature of the industry today, that you have a significant higher quantum of gross adds in the industry and the net adds is quite less compared to that. And that is because there's a lot of rotational churn. So if you will look at churn in every operator, while the quantum may vary, but everybody sees churns across categories of customers whether it is 4G, whether it is higher ARPU or lower ARPU.
Got it. Second question on the tariff hike. So I mean, we have followed the other player in taking tariff hike in the minimum recharge category. But there has been some, I don't know, reservation in tariff hikes in the unlimited plans. So I mean, if you could just give some sense in terms of how the situation is there. Would we take the lead over there? Or I mean, because of the churn that we are seeing, we may be ready to take a lead over there? And what could be time lines that we could see? Or do you think this will be some time away, any tariff hike in unlimited plans?
So I think, as I had mentioned in the last earnings call also, at this point of time, we would expect the market leaders to take the lead in making any tariff changes. We have always reiterated that tariff changes, and I mentioned that in the early part of today's call also, that tariff changes in the high level of consumption are absolutely essential for the industry's health. So if the market leaders are taking any actions, we'll be very happy to follow. That is something which we have been reiterating all the time. I think in terms of whether we can take the lead in making these price interventions, we would be able to do that once we are back to investing. But till then, we would look at the market leaders, and we'll be very happy to follow.
Got it. And last question, I'm sorry if I missed it. You mentioned about obviously the INR 600 crore spectrum repayment. But apart from that, what are the other repayments coming up in this quarter -- sorry, in this year? I think you did mention, I don't know if I missed it.
Yes. So I think I mentioned that we have slightly more debt repayment in this quarter, and that is why we have received a letter of support from the promoters to support us to meet those obligations. So that is regular debt obligations, which are more than the usual. As I said, that this quarter, we had higher debt servicing for which we are getting that support letter from promoters. But from next quarter, our debt servicing goes down significantly. And next quarter, it was only INR 5 billion of debt servicing that is there. So there's a bit of, let's say, the overall debt servicing in this year is less than last year. However, the fact that it is kind of a little more punched up in Q2, we needed the support from promoter. But once we are towards the end of this quarter, actually our external bank debt will be less than INR 60 billion. Really speaking, the external debt, which is the bank debt, will come down significantly post this quarter, and our debt servicing going forward will be much less.
Okay. So did you mention that INR 60 billion of overall repayment coming up in this year apart from this INR 1600-odd crores spectrum payment that we have in 2Q?
No. I think the total debt repayment other than the spectrum payment was more in the region of about INR 7 billion for this financial year completely -- sorry, INR 70 billion, not INR 7 billion, INR 70.
INR 7,000 crores, right, basically, apart from the INR 1,600 crore odd we have for the 5G repayment. Got it. Okay. And this INR 7,000 crores is coming up for repayment by what time?
I mean, this was the full financial year. Q1, we have already paid. And -- sorry, so this figure of INR 7,000 crores is both from Q2 to Q1 of next year. So I think it would be sufficient to say so now that this debt schedule and business information is available in our annual report. You can take a look there the quarterly detail, I think is given. Without getting into too much detail there, what I'm telling is that for this quarter, we'll be able to manage our payments with the promoter support. And from next quarter, our cash generation will be more than debt obligation, which was not the case for the previous few quarters. And so we will then be in a much better position, be able to kind of reduce our vendor payables, which have accumulated over a period of time.
Next question is from the line of Aditya Chandrasekar from UBS Group.
A couple of questions from my side. Firstly, on the 4G subs, so every quarter we have typically added 1 million to 1.5 million subs in the last, say, 4, 5, 6 quarters. This quarter has almost been flat, I think, 2.3 million subs added this quarter. So just wanted to see how you're looking at the 4G subs trend. Are we seeing impact of the competitors having 5G and therefore, are 4G subs also kind of preferring competitors because of their 5G service? Though, I don't know, performance-wise, it makes a difference, but I just wanted to get your thoughts on that.
So let's say, our 4G subs last quarter, the increase was 1 million, roughly. And that was in a situation where our net subscriber loss was much lesser, this and which I said was largely coming from the benefit of there being a price intervention by competitor, which we have actually done in this quarter. So that has given us a benefit in the last quarter. This quarter, we have seen a larger churn of subscribers. So that has also impacted the net addition of 4G. But I think growth of 4G subscribers remains our focus area, and we continue to work on that as to how to just upgrade our subscribers.
Now one is, of course, you upgrade subscribers from 2G to 4G is one category. Secondly, is -- within the 4G segment also, you try to move the subscribers to a higher plan. Amongst the 4G subscribers also, you will have some subscribers who are not on dual plan. And that is another area which we continue to focus on, and that is why you have seen that our ARPU has actually grown from INR 135 to INR 139 in this quarter. So I think while 4G is a good measure of what is happening, but the most important measure to our mind is the growth in ARPU. And that is what we continue to remain focused on.
Are we seeing any impact of any kind of increased churn because the competitors have 5G now in the -- especially in the 4G subsegment?
I think it would be wrong for me to say that it is having no impact at all because definitely we don't have 5G, and competition has 5G, but I would say it is not significant. There has been no significant impact that we are seeing until now because of 5G. And we will do -- I mean, as our funding gets started, we will roll out 5G also. So it's a matter of time, not that we will not roll out 5G.
Got it. And secondly, on the minimum recharge plan, so Bharti has increased it to INR 155, and Jio -- I mean, assuming that the JioBharat phone picks up, et cetera, that's at around INR 125-odd, what stops us from taking our plans from INR 99 INR to 125? Because the subs don't really have another option, right? I mean I think we will see some churn, but I just wanted to get your thought process on that.
So maybe, Aditya, you joined a little late. We had a discussion on this topic, but we have also withdrawn the 99 days -- 28 days validity plan. And in 12 circles, our minimum entry plan for a 24-day validity is INR 155 already except in Haryana, where we have a non-unlimited plan, which is still available at INR 127. But in 11 circles, minimum entry plan for 24 days validity is already INR 155 for us also. And we'll continue to expand this to other circles. We've been a little staggered in our approach of launching this, and we'll continue to expand this to other circles also.
Got it. And lastly, the promoter support of INR 2,000 crores, have you disclosed some -- is it from both promoters or just wanted to check?
I think we have made a disclosure to the stock exchange that it was from one of the promoter entities.
Next question is from the line of Kunal Vora from BNP Paribas.
And I'm sorry, I joined the call late. So if you already answered some of the questions, you can skip them. So I wanted to understand on the letter of support from the promoter, can you provide some details whether it will be debt, it will be equity or -- and like what are the time lines?
So the letter says that the support could be either direct or indirect, direct would be more in the form of equity. If it is debt, it would be, in some way, supported by the promoters is what my understanding is. That is what the promoters have in mind. So funding will be made available as and when required by company. If it has to be equity, then you are already aware that there is about 30 to 40 days time line required for completing the process. Any bank funding which is based on promoters support can be arranged fast. So depending on the time when this is required, they will arrange accordingly.
So when do you lead the funding? You mentioned it will be provided as needed. So when do you need the funding?
It depends on -- there are multiple discussions happening on funding. At the earliest, this may be required in September. And it may not be required at all depending on some other discussions which are happening.
Okay. Second is on the 5G rollout obligations. Like what do you need to do? How much CapEx will you need to do if you want to meet them? And what are the implications if you are not able to meet the obligations?
So I think the CapEx for just meeting the MRO obligation is not very much. I'll not want to get into figures at this time. Needless to say, our intent is to not look at only doing the MRO thing, we would want to roll out a commercial network. Just in terms of consequence, I think we had done some calculation. In any case, out of the 17 circles where we have acquired spectrum, and 2 of the circles we have already filed for compliance, where we have done some minimal investments. But in the remaining circles, as per the NIA, there is liquidated damages, which are applicable. If we look at the 15 circles where we have not rolled out currently, over a period of 26 weeks, this amount is up to order of about INR 12 crores to INR 13 crores.
And on the SG&A cost, like if I look at last 2 years, it's an increase of almost 70% while the network cost is flat. Is there a way we can go back to the levels of SG&A costs you had 2 years back? Or something has structurally changed and thus we need to build on top of where the cost is right now?
I think SG&A cost is a direct reflection of the number of gross adds adding in the industry. Now one of the factors which has also impacted the costs starting somewhere in the COVID periods because the SIM prices have gone up. I think that has started correcting and that part should come down. However the market competitive intensity has gone up because of which the level of gross adds has gone up and that has taken this cost up. I think we would be very happy if initiatives are taken by the industry to kind of curtail this practice because if you really look at the total industry cost being incurred at a net add level, this is very, very high. But I think it has to be a bit of an industry concerted action, whereby the gross acquisitions are driven more by the quality and the desire of the customer rather than by market incentives, which seems to be happening right now.
But if the churn level does go down, do you think the SG&A costs can come down meaningfully from current levels? Or we should not bill that?
Yes. If the level of gross additions comes down, that will definitely reduce the cost.
Okay. And lastly, on the postpaid, the customer additions, [indiscernible] looks strong. Is it M2M or it's like real customers?
So on the postpaid in this quarter, the consumer numbers, there is a marginal change improvement, and the [indiscernible] increase is coming from M2M. However, we have made interventions in our postpaid strategy, both in terms of GTM and also in terms of some of the organization structures. So we are looking at better performance in the postpaid segment going forward.
Just one point, Kunal, I wanted to clarify also that -- and again, maybe you can have a discussion with the top line. But the P&L charge of the SG&A costs is somewhat also impacted by the change in life of customers. So the percentage increase that you may be seeing maybe higher than it actually is. So maybe you can have an offline discussion, we can give you what is the real increase in cost. It would not be as high as the percentage you are indicating, but I don't have a figure with me right now.
Okay. I'll speak with [indiscernible].
Next question is from the line of [indiscernible] Capital.
Nirav, somebody is speaking, we are not able to hear him.
The next question is from the line of K Thakkar from KSL.
This is regarding that exchange submissions about the litigation amounts which you have already submitted to the exchange. Can you just throw some light on your engagement with the concerned ministry and our authorities about resolution of the said litigations? As we all know, with due respect to the court, this litigation we have a history that it goes on for years and years and not just for months for whatever reasons, which kills the near purpose of ease of doing business. And these amounts are -- I mean, the reason is this amount totals to near INR 30,000 crores. And can you throw some light on how much amounts have been paid out of the INR 30,000 crores? And how much have been accounted for?
Okay. Let me give you a broad idea. I had quickly looked at this list. This is the first time these disclosures are being made by all companies based on new regulation, and it's a fairly long list. I will give you an overall picture, and Murthy can add as required. I think if you will look at our list of litigations, the main litigation on the regulatory fund of a significant value is the one which is relating to onetime spectrum charges which is right now in Supreme Court. Other than that, I would say, the -- I mean, relative to the context, the other regulatory litigations are not that large. The other larger amounts which are appearing are in the income tax litigation. Unfortunately, the way the income tax litigations works is that there is a judgment by a higher authority, according to which some of the demands are not correct.
However, since the income tax assessments work on an assessment year basis, even some subjects which are covered by earlier judicial pronouncements at a higher authority, the same demands keep on getting raised each year, then you have to take it to tribunal to be setting based on the previous judicial pronouncements. So this is a cycle to be followed. Now definitely, as an industry, we would be representing and we keep on representing this with the relative relevant ministries. Anyway, as far as DoT is concerned, we are constantly engaged with them. And as I said, there is only one major litigation left. Income tax, I think this is not specific to telecom. This is generic. And I think we need to make a structural change that the department should not really be raising demands in case there is a matter which has been decided favorably by a higher judicial authority. So that structural change, I think we need to make that representation stronger so that this unnecessary litigation can be avoided. That's what you're trying to make.
Yes, yes. Because there is all things when it comes -- I mean, you all are in a better position. These things do come in talks with your investors as well to secure funding because every time it seems that this is the only company which is facing a lot of litigations and there is -- I mean, it is taking a lot of time to get resolution. So that is the reason that your engagement with the relevant or concerned authorities of the ministries to come up with some solutions where it is faster enough than the -- going through the court procedures every time. That's it.
Thanks for that suggestion.
Ladies and gentlemen, I now hand the conference over to Mr. Akshaya Moondra for closing comments.
Thank you, Nirav. We have reported 8 quarters of sequential growth in several key metrics, including ARPU and 4G subscribers. We remain focused on providing competitive data and voice experience at locations we are present and are building a differentiated digital experience, adding several digital offerings in the recent months. We continue to remain engaged with our lenders for further debt fundraising as well as with other parties for equity or equity-linked fundraising to make required investments for network expansion and 5G rollout to compete effectively. These discussions have gathered momentum and progressed well over the last couple of months. We have been improving our performance in the last 8 quarters with limited investments, and we are confident that with the investments coming onstream, we will be able to make more meaningful improvements in our overall performance.
Thank you all for joining this call, and all of you have a very good evening. Thank you.
Thank you very much. On behalf of Vodafone Idea Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.