Vodafone Idea Ltd
NSE:IDEA
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Earnings Call Analysis
Q3-2024 Analysis
Vodafone Idea Ltd
Recent strategic alliances with global gaming giant Gameloft, esports heavyweight Team Vitality, and Job Hai from Infoedge Group signify a notable expansion and enhancement of the company's service offerings. These partnerships not only reinforce a commitment to providing customers with top-tier gaming experiences but also shore up the company's position in the job market with unique benefits like guaranteed interviews within 48 hours of job application submissions. This strategy of building ties with renowned entities has yielded customer approval, evidenced by remarkable improvements in Play Store app ratings, positioning the company at the industry's pinnacle in terms of customer satisfaction.
The company reported a revenue of INR 106.7 billion for the quarter, a modest year-on-year improvement of 0.5%. The key financial metric, Pre-Ind AS EBITDA, reached INR 21.4 billion—the highest in the last 11 quarters. These figures indicate a sustained positive trajectory in financial performance. Alongside the revenue, Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) has also seen an uptick, increasing 2% quarter-on-quarter to INR 145. This climb in ARPU was assisted by subscribers migrating to higher revenue plans, higher data consumptions, and an increase in international roaming revenue facilitated by a change in the entry-level plan.
Within the quarter, the company's capital expenditure reached INR 3.3 billion, a testament to ongoing investments to improve and expand its services while managing costs effectively. The company's gross debt, excluding lease liabilities, stood at an alarming INR 2,149.6 billion, a figure that includes deferred spectrum payment obligations and AGR liabilities. Nevertheless, most of the AGR liability is under moratorium, offering some financial flexibility and time to enhance earnings further and manage liabilities. Managing this debt effectively will be crucial for the company's long-term financial stability.
The company is actively optimising its network by shutting down 3G sites across various circles and reallocating this spectrum to bolster the 4G network. This initiative is expected to enhance network capacity and user experience. Due to the dwindling number of 3G handset users, the company anticipates being able to completely phase out 3G in favor of 4G in the next financial year, further streamlining operations and potentially reducing costs.
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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 and strategic and important questions to make sure that we make good use of the senior management's time.
I must remind you that the discussion on today's call may include certain forward-looking statements and must be viewed, therefore, in conjunction with the risks that the company faces.
With this, I now hand the conference call over to Mr. Akshaya Moondra. And over to you, sir.
Thank you, Nirav. A warm welcome to all participants to this earnings call. Yesterday, our Board of Directors adopted the unaudited results for the quarter ending December 31, 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. Our network investments have been impacted on account of liquidity constraints, but we continue to upgrade the existing non-4G sites to 4G by spectrum refarming. Over the last 1 year, we have added almost 700 unique 4G towers and over 5,200 4G broadband sites. As a result, our broadband coverage as well as capacity has expanded.
So far, we have shut down 3G services in 5 circles of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Mumbai and Kolkata by refarming the spectrum in these circles to 4G. This helps us in utilizing our CapEx effectively, while ensuring that we continue to offer superior customer experience in these areas.
We continue to follow a focused approach to investments biased towards our 17 priority circles, which contribute over 98% of our revenue and around 92% of industry revenue.
Further, to ensure a seamless network connection to all visitors and pilgrims arriving at the city of Ayodhya, we improved our network coverage, increased capacity and enhanced backhaul connectivity by augmenting the network across all spectrum bands in the city of Ayodhya.
Covering all the major points across the city, we significantly added new sites and upgraded or refarmed L2100 spectrum, capacity across the nooks and corners of the city, including Ayodhya railway station, Ram Mandir campus, the airport and the connecting highways to Lucknow and Varanasi.
Our relentless pursuit to offer better experience to customers is clearly visible through these network investment initiatives.
On 5G, we are in discussion with various technology partners for finalization of our 5G rollout strategy as well as working with many partners to develop use cases relevant to the Indian market and have partnered with leading handset manufacturers to test their extensive 5G smartphone portfolio on our 5G network. We are also in advanced stage of trials of Open RAN and embracing new technologies such as virtual RAN.
Moving on to market initiatives. Our brand Vi continues to garner good perception, 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.
Our new brand campaign, Be Someone's We, delivered a powerful message of how our mobile network can serve as a bridge for forming human and social bonds, promoting inclusivity and fostering a sense of togetherness. The campaign focused on deepening emotional affinity to build positive momentum and consumer connect for Vi.
This campaign was promoted across TV, digital and on ground. To promote the campaign, various on-ground engagements were carried with NGOs, old-age homes, et cetera, who celebrate the brand's promise of Be Someone's We with people who are experiencing loneliness.
Our employees, along with more than 500 kits from NGOs, created a Guinness world record for the largest notebook sentence with over 23,000 notebooks across 1 lakh square feet to generate awareness of Be Someone's We. These notebooks were then distributed amongst the children, bringing a smile on their faces.
Further, in our endeavor to offer unprecedented benefits, we introduced choose your benefit on Vi Max postpaid, a pioneering feature allowing customers to customize plans based on their needs. This marked the end of an era of postpaid plans that were one size fits all. The launch was supported by a comprehensive 360-degree campaign encompassing outdoor, print and commercial aired throughout the World Cup.
During the festive season, Vi Hero Unlimited promotion seamlessly integrated the celebratory spirit, enabling customers to maximize their experience with Vi Hero Unlimited. Further, through our international roaming campaign, we emphasized our exclusive benefit of truly unlimited calls and data on international roaming available for both prepaid and postpaid customers. It was promoted to our customers traveling overseas through contextual placements on travel portals and via WhatsApp messages.
You may recollect that we had changed entry-level pricing where the validity of INR 99 plan was reduced from 28 days to 15 days. This has been expanded to 16 circles now, and we continue to observe the space and will make further interventions as we go forward.
Major impact of these interventions is reflected in this quarter. We continue to focus on getting more customers on unlimited plans for further ARPU improvements. We have seen ARPU growth for 10 consecutive quarters now. Q3 FY '24 ARPU stands at INR 145 compared to INR 142 in previous quarter, a quarter-on-quarter growth of 2%. On a year-on-year basis, ARPU has increased by 7.4%.
That said, tariff rationalization on the higher usage plan 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 investment.
Moving on to Business Services. Business Services or Enterprise segment is one of our strength areas going through our longstanding 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 offering.
Our planned expansion of services beyond connectivity has been good traction -- or has seen good traction, and we continue to work with multiple partners to make our offerings more relevant to enterprise customers.
In this fast evolving digital era, we are the first and only provider of Rich Business Messaging in India, which is a communication channel provided by Vi for Android devices. We have successfully delivered 2 billion messages during the year.
This is a new visually appealing medium for enterprises to reach their customers and has distinct feature benefits like 2-way conversation from the customer's default messaging inbox; rich content like images, PDF, GIF, videos over SMS. Enterprises can do one-on-one communication in a much more segmented and branded way, where the brand name and company logo is visible; enhanced security features, like verified shield batch, white listing and firewall protection against spam and fraud.
The digital user experience interface allows for many experience features like URL embed, location share, carousel scrolling of content, along with capabilities of chatbot and real-time analytics. It helps enterprises improve their ROIs and offers multifold use cases through the purchase cycle, that is bookings, reminders, status of purchase and delivery confirmations, to name a few.
During the quarter, Vi business has been honored with Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Award 2023, where in our Smart Mobility solutions have received the 2023 Enabling Technology Leadership Award and our Session Initiation Protocol that is SIP trunking services have received the 2023 Technology Innovation Leadership Award for the second time in a row.
The new strategic initiative is driving partnerships -- the next strategic initiative is driving partnerships and digital revenue streams. We have set a strong digital roadmap for the company and have been executing the same through strategic partnerships and our continuing journey of being a truly integrated digital services provider.
We are building most of these offerings on our Vi app. We recently integrated utility bill payment functionality on Vi app, enabling our users to pay their electricity bills, water bills, LPG bills, recharging, FASTag, renewal of DTH or broadband subscriptions or payment of insurance premium, loan EMI, et cetera.
Further leveraging telco data and excess capabilities to create a digital marketplace, we have launched Shop section on Vi app in partnership with leading players across categories, like entertainment, food, shopping and travel. We're also in the strategic partnership with EaseMyTrip to enable flight bookings from Vi app with exclusive offers for Vi customers. We will soon be adding hotel, train and bus bookings. We have a clear roadmap to scale each of these streams, and that's going to be for our focus in the coming quarters.
We recently launched our first bundle proposition with Amazon on prepaid bundling Prime video mobile edition with prepaid unlimited pack. In the coming weeks, we will be expanding this portfolio. We have also developed TV apps for Vi movies and TV that will support multiple TV operating systems like Android or Google TV, Fire Stick, [ Saizen ] and others. These will be launched to consumers very soon.
As you may remember, we offered gaming on our Vi app, wherein we have hyper-casual games in partnership with OnMobile, some casual games like Solitaire, Ludo, et cetera, and also e-sports in partnership with GamerG.
We have recently expanded our offering with a strategic partnership with a global gaming leader, Gameloft. Our customers can now access Gameloft originals and other popular game titles, such as Danger Dash, Block Breaker Unlimited, Asphalt Retro and more.
We also entered into a strategic partnership with a global esports major Team Vitality to build a strong offering into esports. These partnerships underscore our commitment to provide the best in category gaming options and experience to mobile gamers.
On the jobs front, we recently got into a strategic partnership with Job Hai, an Infoedge Group company, to strengthen our jobs position by providing early and exclusive access to new jobs and a guaranteed interview within 48 hours of applying for a job.
Based on the transformation we have seen over the last year, our customer ratings on Play Store have improved, taking our app ratings to the best in industry. We continue to maintain the same strength.
Further, on the customer servicing front, we remain focused on providing best customer experience. We have seen reduction in the overall customer complaints. Also in line with evolving customer behavior, around 60% of our customer service requests are now raised digitally compared to 40% a year ago.
We would like to reiterate that we will 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. The 4G subscriber base has continued to grow for the 10th successive quarter and stood at 125.6 million as on December 31, 2023, versus 124.7 million in Q2 FY '24. The overall subscriber base stood at 215.1 million. Revenue for the quarter stood at INR 106.7 billion. Pre-Ind AS EBITDA at INR 21.4 billion is the highest in the last 11 quarters.
ARPU improved to INR 145, up 2% quarter-on-quarter versus INR 142 in Q2 FY '24, primarily aided by migration of subscribers to higher ARPU plans, higher uptake of data sashes and higher international roaming revenue as well as change in entry-level plan. As for funding discussions, these are in progress with investors. And given the nature of these discussions, we will not be able to respond to any queries on this subject.
With that, I hand over to Murthy, who will share the financial highlights on the quarter.
Thank you, Akshaya. A warm welcome to each of you. As Akshaya mentioned, revenues for the quarter stood at INR 106.7 billion, a year-on-year improvement of 0.5% aided by improving subscriber mix and change in entry-level plan. This is also the 10th consecutive quarter of growth in ARPUs on 4G subscribers.
Quarterly EBITDA, excluding Ind AS 116 improved by 6.8% on a year-on-year basis to INR 21.4 billion compared to the INR 20 billion in quarter 3 FY '23, and the EBITDA margin improved to 20%. The reported EBITDA stood at INR 43.5 billion as compared to INR 41.8 billion in quarter 3 FY '23.
Further, depreciation and amortization expenses and net finance cost for the quarter are INR 56 billion and INR 54.9 million, respectively. Excluding the impact of Ind AS 116, the depreciation and amortization expenses and net finance cost for the quarter stands at INR 41.2 billion and INR 55.8 billion, respectively.
The exceptional line item of INR 7.6 billion represents the excess amount paid towards the difference in administrative spectrum price and the auction price at the time of merger, as acknowledged by DoT and directed by TDSAT this quarter. CapEx spend for the quarter stood at INR 3.3 billion and CapEx for 9 months at INR 13 billion.
The gross debt, excluding lease liabilities and including interest accrued and not due as of December 31, 2023, stood at INR 2,149.6 billion, comprising of deferred spectrum payment obligations and AGR liability of INR 2,072.6 billion, out of which INR 1,885.5 billion is under moratorium. And the balance, INR 187.1 billion is payable in annual installments.
The debt on banks and financial institutions stands at INR 60.5 billion, and the balance, INR 15.6 billion is towards option convertible debentures. The net debt stood at INR 2,146.4 billion.
With this, I hand over the call to Nirav and open the floor for questions.
[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Vivekanand from AMBIT Capital.
The first question I have is on the network cost provisions. So I know that the reported number is pre-Ind AS -- or rather, post Ind AS. So just wanted to understand, were there any cost saving initiatives that kicked in that resulted in network cost being lower than the average in the last 4 quarters? That's my first question. I'll ask my other ones after you answer it.
Vivekanand, Murthy this side. And just to respond to it, the cost for this quarter are usual. These were lower due to seasonal impacts. And therefore, if you look at the 9 months -- over the 9 months period this quarter, this year and last year, I think the costs are in line.
And Vivek, if I may add, I think while the larger part of the reduction is coming from seasonality, there was some impact also because of some reduction in energy cost in a few circles.
Also we continue to take initiatives in terms of taking actions to reduce our costs, which are not a single large initiative, which may result in a large cost reduction. But there are constant initiatives being taken to bring down cost in each line item. And I think that also contributes to the overall cost improvement.
Okay. As far as the refarming initiatives are concerned, you have mentioned that 3G has been shut down in 5 circles. And the reason why you shut 3G down now, was it because there were too few number of users who had only 3G handsets? Or was it something else?
I'm just curious to understand what is the driving force behind the timing of 3G shutdown. You could have done it earlier also, but I'm sure you have some logic to decide why you shut down only this quarter.
Okay. Vivek, I think maybe we have been in the 5 circles where it has not shut down completely. Some districts have been shut down earlier also. It's not that this has all happened in this quarter.
What we mentioned is that in these quarters, these 5 circles, all the 3G sites have been completely closed. The other circles also, many 3G sites have been closed, so that is there.
And fundamentally, as of today, let's say, given a choice, we would want to shut down all the 3G sites and use the spectrum for 4G, which provides better capacity, better experience and, of course, reduces elimination technology from a site which is generally an optimum way to operate.
However, the continuation is only based on the number of 3G devices. And progressively, we are continuing to close down 3G sites. While I cannot give a definite time line, but I would expect that in the next financial year, we should also be able to close the entire 3G network, as the number of handsets reduce on the network.
Okay. So a related question on the 3G shutdown is the population coverage of broadband. I see that when you shut down 3G sites and refarm the spectrum into 4G, population coverage doesn't seem to have improved.
So is it only impacting 4G availability and capacity? Maybe I'm technically challenged, so if you can explain this in detail, that will be great.
No, no. It's simple. Every 3G site already has 4G. It's -- 1800 is completely deployed in 4G. Some sites, 2100 would be on 3G. What we do when we refarm is that 2100 is also deployed for 4G. So there would be no site today, which is 3G, but not 4G.
I see. Okay. So when you refarm 2100 megahertz spectrum to 4G, you are not getting additional coverage, but capacity.
We are just keeping additional capacity, that's right.
Okay. So today, because in your presentation that you had given in June last year, you had highlighted some targets with respect to progress on the targets, what was outlined during the merger versus what you have delivered. And there, you have highlighted that there was a 3x uptick. So this is helping you exceed that even further. Is that the right way to think about it?
So I would say that 3G to 4G, given the quantum, there is a capacity addition. So capacity addition is happening by refarming. Capacity addition is also happening where we have deployed some 4G-only sites, although these have not been very large and alluded to the numbers in my opening remarks.
So I would say that this is resulting in capacity addition, but it is not of a significant nature because the delta that you get is that 5 megahertz of 3G watt capacity it could deliver and 5 megahertz that converted to 4G could deliver a higher capacity.
So that capacity growth continues to happen, but it is not of a very significant nature. But very roughly, I can say, I think over the last 1 year, we have added overall capacity of about 4% to 5% on our network.
Okay. Understood. So my last question is the -- on the bank loans that you are repaying. So now that you have another -- around INR 5,400 crores of loans that are due for repayment, is it fair to say that once you retire these loans, assuming no change in funding situation, your ability to invest in the network will improve? Is that how to think about your CapEx, say, a year from now?
I would put it this way that the CapEx required is significant. And if we want to make significant changes to our cash generation, then the level of CapEx has to be higher, and it would largely depend on funding.
Of course, the easing out of debt situation does help us in keeping setting aside some capital or some cash for CapEx. However, as you are aware that we also have an overdue vendor position, and I think what will really start happening in the first year is that as our cash is not going towards state servicing, we will then be able to use it towards reduction of vendor overdues, and that would be our first priority.
Next question is from the line of Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities.
First -- on the last quarter also, I asked the question that things doesn't look like improving on the subscriber addition and that for the industry as a whole has significantly slowed down. Any particular reason why there is a sudden deceleration in the subscriber growth across your [ spectrum ]?
Sorry. Could you repeat the last part? You said significant.
Deceleration in the subscriber addition for Vodafone as well as for the industry in the last 2 quarters.
Okay. So I think as far as industry is concerned, we have only seen one set of figures, which show a similar trend of subscriber additions. In our case, the reduction, or the higher level of decline, is coming out of two factors.
One is that, as we had mentioned that last quarter, we had significant additions in that Indira Gandhi Smartphone Yojana. And so that has kind of helped us in resulting a lower net decline.
And then if I take out the impact of that and build some additional loss of subscribers because of the change in the entry-level plan, so any change that you make in the entry-level plan or any plan, would be generally overall positive on the revenue, but it does result in a onetime increase in churn.
If I take those two factors into account, our churn or our net decline in subscribers is more or less in line with what we saw in Q1. So Q2 was helped a bit by the Indira Gandhi Smartphone Yojana.
So I think the industry additions continue. There is no deceleration there. But of course, we need to make investments to get into positive territory of subscriber additions because, while we continue to acquire more customers higher than -- our share of gross adds is higher than our customer market share. But we need to provide additional coverage, so that we can arrest the churn completely and move to a positive territory of subscriber additions.
Fair enough. Coming to the investment you made in this quarter, we saw that CapEx was only INR 3 billion. Do you see in the coming quarter a higher share of cash flow now that there is lower repayment required for the bank loan?
You have started doing some vendor payout also in this quarter. Have you seen more share of cash flow being deployed from the CapEx going next quarter onwards?
Let's say, in this current quarter, which is Q4, we still have a fairly large debt servicing. Let's say, that does not leave us any additional room. I think in the next financial year Q1, we will have to strike a balance between what we allocate to CapEx, so that at least we are making some investment, which can enable us to improve our cash flows, while in parallel also paying something to the vendors, so they see a reduction in overdues.
So it's a fine balancing act we have to do till the time we get funding. And of course, when funding is there, then the new funding will be used for new CapEx. And the generation that we are getting from our operations, minus the old debt servicing will be used to pay the vendors. That's the way we are planning this up.
Fair enough. And my last question is on 5G. We said that we are now speaking with the vendor and evaluating. Any initial thoughts on how do you look at 5G deployment?
I think I would say that this is evolving in a manner, and I think we will at least have the benefit of seeing what is the 5G adoption happening. I think significant investments have been made on the 5G front with significant CapEx being incurred.
The challenge, which we see today is that there is no monetization happening. In fact, the way 5G is priced today is actually resulting in discounting of 4G also. Because whatever is being used on 5G, that is not counted at all.
So I think there are two things, the strategy of rollout is that we need to provide a good experience to our customers, where customers are asking for it. However, I think by the time we launch it, we will also have some clarity on what monetization is happening, which we believe is around the corner.
Because having made such large investments and no monetization happening, I think the industry does need to see some movement towards monetization. And let's say, if we are launching 5G in 3 to 4 months -- sorry, 6 to 7 months' time, then probably it's -- we will have a better idea of what is happening on the monetization front. After funding is there, we will need some time to roll out, let's say, 6 to 7 months. And once that happens, by then, the monetization will be clearer than it is today.
And our strategy will be based on that. Because I would say that once 5G starts getting charged, we will have to see the adoption of 5G in that scenario. Currently, since it is free, the adoption is not really representative of what the customer is willing to pay for the higher consumption for the same application, which may happen on many 5G use cases.
Got it. One last bookkeeping question. We have received advanced income tax, which we have paid earlier. We also have a large GST outstanding. I guess, it has been a long demand from our side for releasing that. Any progress on that side?
I think as far as GST is concerned, it has been a request from the industry that whatever GST is blocked, it should be -- even if a cash refund is not possible, we should be allowed to offset it against payments, which are made on a reverse charge basis.
We had also requested that items like spectrum and all, which are onetime payouts, if those government payouts can be accepted from GST payment. Generally, the sense I have is that since this is a matter which is the GST Council, and GST Council is comprising of multiple state and central government, any decision on this side is a little difficult to make.
So as of now, there is no progress. But I would think, given the status of telecom industry today, given the need for the investments required, it would be very useful if the government can look at it favorably and do something about it because all telecom operators have a large blockage.
And I think, especially with the 5G investments now haven't come in, people having invested in 5G spectrum also and all those payouts are also subject to GST, the GST blockage is really a bit unfair for the industry. And so any help there would be very, very helpful from -- or any support from the government will be very helpful there.
What will be our outstanding GST right now in the balance sheet?
It is north of INR 7,000 crores.
Next question is from the line of Aliasgar from Motilal Oswal.
Couple of questions. One is on this repayment that is coming up in the next 1 year, about INR 5,400 crores. You've also mentioned that some of the debt has been classified as current maturity due to obviously covenant clauses, which is another approximately adding INR 2,800 crores. So does that INR 2,800 crores include the INR 5,400 crores? Or is it additional?
And a followup there, if it is additional and if it's also payable before, let's say, December '24, then, cumulatively, what sort of -- it's about approximately INR 3,500-odd crores. So with the current cash flow improvement of somewhere about INR 2,000, INR 2,500 crores. [indiscernible] INR 2,900 crores, so how do you think you can fund this if our -- the funding does get a bit extended? So that's my first question.
So Ali, the -- firstly, the reclassification is arising out of the breach in covenant and as mandated by accounting standards. And therefore, it doesn't mean that, that is payable, unless it is demanded by the lenders. As of now that's not the case. And therefore, what is payable over the next 12 months is only the figure of INR 5,400-odd crores that you mentioned.
But just to give you a breakup of that. That INR 5,400 crores includes about INR 533 crores of spectrum payouts, the principal part. Then there is about INR 3,200 crores plus of bank debt. And then there is OCBs of INR 1,600 crores, where repayment will -- is dependent on whether conversion happens or not. If they are converted into equity, then that INR 1,600 crores will go out of this INR 5,400 crores figure.
Got it. So basically, unconditional payment is about INR 3,300 crores. The rest is conditional, right?
No. The spectrum payment is also unconditional. I'm saying that is this -- the INR 1,600 crores out of this is really different.
Got it. Understood. Second question is on this data traffic, which I see declined in this quarter by 2%. Now in a way, one is we have seen 4G subscribers growing by obviously about 1.2-odd million crores. And obviously, that would be coming at a higher usage per customer.
Also you were mentioning that probably, data traffic may have gone higher on 4G, understanding that's what, I think, the peers in the industry have also been seeing. So just wanted to kind of understand what would have made this decline.
And a quick follow-up there actually is that while -- of course, tariff 5G is something, which anybody made us believe will come soon or later, any other way to monetize is the higher consumption where the customers will probably either upgrade their unlimited plans or maybe they would require some add-ons?
So in this scenario where the capital decline that seems to be kind of a trend, which is contrary to what the other 2 players are seeing. So if you could just clarify how this has played out.
So Ali, let me just try to address this question in a few parts. Firstly, while we have gone from a positive growth in the last quarter to negative, last quarter, we were plus 2% positive. And this quarter, we had minus 2%. So the delta of growth in -- the delta of quarter-on-quarter is about 4%.
You would see the same trend in the other set of results, which have been declared where the growth has declined. The percentage of growth has declined by about the same level of 4%.
So it is not specific to us. It is more an industry thing. Now if you come to think of it, this looks a little awkward that, especially in a quarter where we've had World Cup, why should this happen? And when this initially happened, we were also a little surprised as to why this is so.
And I think a complete answer to this is not available, but with whatever trends we could see, one of the things which happened is that a lot of consumption happens on OTT content, which is watched on the mobile.
During the World Cup, there were a few things that we observed. One is all India matches are normally on weekends, whereby people were watching this largely either on cable TV, where the time lag was minimum. And we had observed somewhere that there was a time lag of 5 to 6 seconds in the OTT platform. And in fact, I was joking with my team that 5 to 6 seconds is hardly anything. And people were telling me, no, since they're watching a live match, a 5 to 6 seconds delay could be a lot.
So I think India matches, people watched a lot on the cable TV. Also while at home, even if they were watching it on the OTT platform, it was probably more on WiFi. So when we have evaluated the data, especially during the weekends where India matches were there, the data consumption actually declined.
So I think there is a bit of a difference. And I would say that if you compare with IPL, IPL sees a fairly long period of increased data consumption, which is generally the expectation during World Cup. But the consumer behavior during World Cup and during IPL has been quite different.
The other point, which you were mentioning is that another way of getting higher revenues is monetizing the data. And I can tell you, in this quarter, we have seen a higher sale of data sashes, which I had also mentioned in my opening remarks is one of the factors, which is a marginal contributor to the improvement in ARPU. So while the overall data consumption has reduced, the sale of data sashes has increased.
And so I think it's a bit of a mixed bag. Maybe people have not utilized their quota fully. And in fact, this trend has kind of increased. The consumption has somewhat reduced on some of these days during the World Cup, and it has impact.
So in summary, this is not only us. The other results which have been declared also show the same result. The sale of data sashes over and above, the limit has actually gone up. So that is not a factor, which is resulting in data reduction.
So we'll have to see what is happening over a longer period of time. But definitely, the quarter is a bit of an aberration in terms of trend of data traffic. I hope I've answered your question.
Yes. That's very clear. Sorry, I joined a little late, but if you maybe explain, can you just explain this TDSAT related gain of sale for INR 60 crore, if is related to what?
So as I mentioned in my opening remarks, the gain of that 7.6 billion is on account of a difference we had -- if you recollect at the time of merger, based on the merger guidelines, we had to pay a certain amount to the DoT, which the DoT raised the demand. We have subsequently found that the demand was possible on a higher side, and that we had taken it with DoT.
We also filed a petition in the TDSAT. DoT accepted that. Based on their calculations, it's an amount of 7.6 billion, whereas as per us, it was supposed to be about INR 1,200 crores. So therefore, the balance amount is still subsidies. But currently, these are directed that the 7.6 billion be given to us. And therefore, that's a play that's come in the financials.
So cash is not received, you're saying, but we have reversed it on the basis of the TDSAT's ruling.
That's right. It will be adjusted against the payables that we have towards a license fee and other dues to DoT.
Basically, it is a noncash item in the sense that there is no transfer of cash, but it is a cash accretion because we have been able to use it or set it off against other liabilities, which we would have to pay out cash otherwise. Effectively, it is a fund of what we had paid excess at the time of merger. And just to be clear...
And what this payment towards -- sorry, what was this towards payment of during merger?
You see, during the merger, for the merging entity, the differential in price of the administered spectrum versus the market price of the spectrum has to be paid. This was calculated by DoT in a certain manner, which we have challenged. Out of the challenge and a larger challenge is still being contested. But DoT had themselves expected -- accepted that there was an excess calculation of INR 775 crores.
As an interim relief, TDSAT has ordered that this should be refunded by DoT. In fact, this should also be refunded, along with interest according to us, and that would be a part of the final decision, which TDSAT gives on the matter.
So we are looking at two further benefits in the same case. One is that there is an incremental amount of calculation where DoT and VIL still have a different view. And secondly, on what has been agreed, the interest on that is still to be closed in the final hearing, as and when it happens at TDSAT.
Next question is from the line of Kunal Vora from BNP Paribas.
I just wanted to understand the CapEx. So what we are seeing now, I think, is the lowest we've seen in many years and maybe the lowest ever. Does this hamper the businesses in any way? And can you continue operating at 3% CapEx to sales? What's the minimum amount of maintenance CapEx, which you think should be done?
Kunal, this question of maintenance CapEx has been asked many times. I think in the past also, I replied certain times that there is very little CapEx, which goes out of use. Because it is no longer usable, it goes out of use because the technology forces you to change it.
So we would currently have equipment deployed in our networks, which is surviving for much more than the 9 years of life over, which we depreciated. And there are also cases where we had to retire equipment earlier than that life because the technology has changed.
In essence, what I'm saying is there is very little in terms of concept of maintenance CapEx. And if you will see, as far as VIL is concerned, we went through a massive integration expertise where a lot of 2G equipment was surplus.
So to that extent, from a maintenance perspective, as far as 2G or 3G is concerned, we have sufficient equipment available. So really speaking from a space perspective, the only place where that is required is 4G, and those are all generally covered by AMC. So AMC appears more as OpEx. And so really speaking, there is very little that is to be incurred by way of maintenance CapEx.
Currently, the CapEx, which we are incurring is more to kind of do the necessary CapEx where some capacity bottlenecks are there, it is necessary to incur. IT is a major -- I mean, some of the IT development is a part of CapEx. There are new regulations, which come up, which have to be addressed matters to be done. There are some places where equipment is end of life, that has to be replaced.
So I think all that is happening. But to maintenance CapEx, I don't think there is much of maintenance CapEx. Large part of it is covered by AMC.
Understood. Just wanted to understand. If you don't see any data volume growth, can you manage with this 3%, 4% CapEx per se?
Kunal, as I have been saying, our challenge has not been capacity of late, and we have been providing good speeds, which have remained good over a long period of time.
So capacity, while it is not equally distributed, but our overall performance on speeds and performance is good.
But in terms of sustenance, see, at one level, I can say that CapEx then is required primarily for expansion of coverage. And I think from a competitive perspective, that is essential, and that will happen only once funding is there.
But yes, with our debt largely having been serviced and the current level of cash generation, it is not an ideal situation to operate. We would want to make investments, but it is also right that we are generating cash where we are able to meet our obligation and provide service to customers.
The only negative thing is that we have to make sufficient investments to be able to arrest the decline of loss of subscribers. That is the most essential thing, I think. That would require an expansion of 4G coverage and some element of 5G rollout.
Understood. Second is, can you update us on the promoter funding that was expected? What were the terms? And why is there a delay? Sorry if I'm like -- it's already covered. I joined the call a bit late. But if it's not covered, if you can talk about it.
I think we had made this disclosure in August, around the time of the last results that the promoters will provide direct or indirect financial support to the company for meeting the impending payment obligations. And I think that commitment still stays.
They are also committed ultimately to provide this as equity funding. But that will be, as things stand on, let's see, will be a part of the overall equity raise. However, that support is available in case company is needing it necessarily for meeting its impending obligation.
Next question is from the line of [ Bharath Ranjan ] from Antique Stock Broking.
I just wanted to understand, is the scope for you to reduce your cost -- tenancy costs now that 5G is being rolled out by our competition? So however you are sharing the tower, we have scope to reduce our cost.
No, I think that is not the case because the tower contracts are made in a certain manner. So if you -- if there's a single tenant on a site, you get a second tenant, then the rental of first tenant goes down. If there are two tenants and a third tenant comes in, then the rental of both the first and second tenant comes down. It also results in some benefit or some optimization in terms of energy costs.
However, if the number of tenants on a site does not change, and a new tenant is already deploying -- or existing tenant is only deploying new equipment, then the rental for that tenant increases without any reduction to the existing tenants. So 5G deployment is not the case where the cost of existing tenants spend go down.
The upgradation of 2G customers over the last quarter, do you see an improving trend? Or is it largely flattish?
There is a constant -- so I think when you say improving trend, you mean that are we continuing to see an upgrade? So we continue to see upgrade. The pace of upgrade is not very different. It has continued at a certain pace. And as I mentioned again that if that pace has to accelerate significantly, we would need to expand our 4G coverage.
But as you will see that over the last 10 quarters, we have continuously improved our ARPU and our 4G subscribers. So generally, that is a growing trend, both in terms of 4G subscribers, which is a surrogate for higher ARPU subscribers. And that is shown in the fact that our ARPU, actually if you look at in percentage terms, while our customer mix is different and our absolute ARPU is lower, but if you will see the percentage improvement in ARPU over the last one year or even last 2 years, we have had similar percentage of ARPU increase as competition has had.
But a large change in the customer mix can happen only by expanding 4G coverage and having a significant change in that trajectory that we have seen on technology.
Next question is from the line of Hemang Khanna from Nomura.
I had a couple of them. Sir, firstly, on the subscriber mix, now that...
Hemang, sorry to interrupt you. Can you please speak a little louder?
Am I audible now?
Yes.
Yes. Firstly, on the subscriber mix, now that the tariff intervention for the INR 99 plan is largely done, would it be fair for us to understand that, broadly speaking, going forward, the overall subscribers declines would moderate from here on?
And my second question is related to the overall payments, which are present in FY '25, '26. Could you please share what would be the overall payables in terms of government and other debts over each of these 2 years, for FY '25 and '26, please?
Okay. Let me answer the first question, and I'll leave it for Murthy to answer the second question. But I think we'll be able to give you a figure for FY '25, which I think was on certain earlier question, but he can answer that question once again.
So on your question of INR 99 plan, one is that this has been implemented in 16 of our circle. And whatever impact it had to have on churn, I think that was completed. In our 6 circles, we have still not implemented it. We may implement it in the future.
As I mentioned earlier, there is a bit of accentuation of the churn that we have seen in this quarter because of the change in tariff plan, which happened in the last quarter. So in some ways, yes, it should represent a bit of an accentuation of the overall net decline. So one would expect that going forward in the next quarter, we should see some improvement in this KPI. However, the extent and quantum of that is difficult to predict.
Now I think as far as the liability is concerned in the last question, we said there is about INR 5,400 crores of servicing in FY '25, out of which, roughly INR 500 crores goes towards spectrum, and this is only the principal part of spectrum. The installment is higher. About INR 3,200 crores is towards bank debt, which is actually falling due. And then there is INR 1,600 crores of OCDs, which are currently counted in that figure, but there is a possibility that they may get converted.
And if that happens, then that INR 1,600 crores will reduce from the INR 5,400 crores figure, which has been given for FY '25. I will ask Murthy if the FY '26 figure, it will be a very nominal figure because a large part of the -- the bank debt will be very nominal. The government debt is large.
Yes. So '25, '26, when the merger gets over, then there's a lumpy payment to be done. And as Akshaya mentioned, the bank debt is a nominal one, but the overall amount is close to about INR 30,000 crores, about INR 1,800 crores.
So the bank, that will be INR 1,800 crores. The government payable will be higher because if we got the -- would be FY '26, it would be 6 months only, yes.
Right. And sir, you mentioned about INR 30,000 crores as the overall payment, which is related to the government side in FY '26, right?
Yes. Give me 1 minute. So in FY '26, the government payout will be roughly INR 27,000 crores, INR 28,000 crores.
Next question is from the line of [ Ramesh Sharan ] from HSBC.
We do get to hear a lot of negative news on ET Now Moneycontrol, et cetera, on various topics. So what we are doing to clarify on these and take this up for subsequent -- subsequently, so that these sort of negative news do not come in, which are unsubstantiated?
I think, Ramesh, as you mentioned, a lot of this news is unsubstantiated. That is the way the media operates here. I think there's very little we can do about it, unless the government itself does something or the regulatory agencies themselves do something to regulate the media on not publishing such unsubstantiated reports. So I think there's very little that we as corporates can do anything about.
Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as the last question. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Akshaya Moondra for closing comments.
Thank you, Nirav, and thank you, everyone, for participating. In line with the evolving industry landscape and changing customer needs, we have revamped our [ offline ] as well as focusing on execution to effectively compete in the market. Resultantly, we are able to grow our 4G subscribers and ARPU consecutively for last 10 quarters.
We have also reported in this quarter the highest pre-Ind AS EBITDA of INR 21.4 billion in the last 11 quarters. Further, we remain focused on providing competitive data and voice experience at locations we are present -- where we are present and are building a differentiated digital experience, adding several digital offerings in the recent quarters.
Our share in gross customer addition continues to remain higher than our customer market share for the last several quarters, clearly reflecting our ability to compete in the market once the investments are in place. We remain engaged with various parties for fundraising to make required investments for network expansion, including 5G roll-out. Thank you all for joining this call. Have a good evening. Thanks.
On behalf of Vodafone Idea Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.