Stockrabit · Analysts
Questions across 6 calls

Akshaya Moondra

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Vodafone Idea Limited

Vodafone Idea Limited CC-Jun25.pdf · 2025-08-18
Thanks, Vivek. Your first question is relating to churn and how do we see this going forward, and you had a specific question on BSNL. It is difficult to say whether the customers who had gone have come back . But definitely, the immediate fallout of the price increase where all operators saw a significant increase in loss of subscribers to BSNL has turned around. And if we look at the port -in, port-out data, which is available, that has been turning around, since January this year. So definitely, that is behind us as far as the current trends are concerned. In terms of our own churn levels, they have been coming down continuously. Sometimes it is difficult to draw an exact correlation between population coverage and churn. But as you can see Q2 was impacted by price increase. But if you look at Q3 of last financial year, our subscriber loss was in the ballpark of 5 million, which reduced to 1.6 million in the previous quarter , and which has reduced to 0.5 million in the last reported quarter. As our population coverage has been increasing, we have seen a continuous improvement in the subscriber metrics. I would say that some of the other interventions, which have still not played out completely are that while the 4G coverage was largely done, in the previous quarter, the 5G rollout has started from March '25, a few cities were rolle d out in Q1, but a large part of the new cities have been rolled out in June and July onwards. So that impact is still to reflect in the overall improvement in subscriber metrics. As we continue to invest, these things take some time to register., As you are aware, we have also come with several attractive pricing propositions, particularly the Non -Stop Hero, which is becoming quite popular. And in some of these circles, Non-Stop Hero has actually been launched in the current quarter, that is Q2. So that will have to play out. So, with all these interventions in place, we are quite confident that our subscriber metrics will continue to improve and all factors of population coverage, 5G rollout, product interventions, better customer service, which is also a focus area. All these things combined together are letting the subscriber metrics move in the right direction, and that will continue. If I have answered your first question, then I will move on to the second one.
Yes. You see it's like this. As we have said in the past that generally speaking, we have not seen a difference in the trend of subscribers who are churning out between people who have 5G devices or not. However, once you start having a particular offering in our network, definitely, it creates a positive feedback or positive sense in the customers who are wanting to use 5G or who are particularly looking for 5G. So, while we have said earlier that it did not have a significant impact on churn, as you make these investments, it gives you 2 benefits. One is, of course, people who want to use 5G technology who have 5G devices, they benefit from it, and it has been rolled out in most of the major cities in any circle. Secondly, as we roll out 5G, it is also a means to create more capacity and particularly in congested areas, while bring ing in the 5G experience, it also improves the experience on 4G because that gets congested as traffic transfers to 5G. It is difficult to pin down the churn performance to a single factor. And as I said, it's a combination of all 3 factors, majorly the population coverage, the availability of 5G, the pricing interventions. And of course, there's a lot of execution in the marketplace, which is there. We ourselves find differentials in our different markets. And as we see more and more and we get into more details, sometimes these also turn out to be execution differences of what are we doing well in some areas, how can we replicate it in other areas. So, as I said, our investments are happening. We are moving in the right direction and the subscriber metrics will continue to improve. Moving on to your second question about Capex. In the last quarter, we had indicated that we are looking at about INR 50 billion to INR 60 billion of Capex in H1. I had also mentioned that a large part of it should come in Q1. But the 5G rollout has taken a little while , and most of this will be done by this quarter. So that range of INR 50 billion to INR 60 billion, which we had indicated for H1, we should meet that target by September '25. So, we are in line with that target. That is pretty much the Capex that we can incur out of new funding. As you are aware, currently, we also generate some positive cash from operations post servicing of debt. And we will have some capability to incur Capex beyond that. But the larger quantum of Capex, which is a part of our plan will require new funding to come, for which we have mentioned that we are engaged with the banks and also looking at some other sources of funding , so that we can maintain the continuity of our Capex. However, I must add here that with whatever Capex we have incurred and what we will incur by end of September, we have got to a point where our 4G coverage is very competitive where we are present in terms of capacity utilization, experience, speeds, they are all very good. And 5G also wherever we have rolled out, we have a very competitive offering in terms of speeds or performance. So, while we look at a significant round of next Capex coming from new funding, it is very clear that what we have already invested puts us in a much better competitive position, and we will continue to leverage that as we move forward.
Vodafone Idea Limited CC-Mar25.pdf · 2025-06-02
Sanjesh, thanks for the question. 4G net adds that we had in the last quarter was a nominal increase. This quarter, we've added about 0.4 million 4G subscribers. Generally, the 4G subscriber trajectory would also change in line with our overall subscriber trajectory. Also, when I talk about 4G, it includes 5G also, and the proportion of 5G devices on our network is also growing constantly. As we roll out our 5G network across different circles, that would also enable us in getting more smartphones onto our network. These are the things which are trending in the right direction , especially the subscriber metrics where we have seen a significant reduction in the subscriber loss compared to last quarter and an improvement in the 4G subscriber additions. I would say that with the continuing investment and launch of 5G, we should see a further improvement going forward.
Yes, yes. In all the 4 cities , I mean, 2 circles and 2 cities , where we have launched 5G, the uptake has been very good. Traffic has quickly started moving to 5G, wherever people have 5G devices. One thing I have been very happy about is that Mumbai, Delhi and also Chandigarh and Patna post the launch, we've not had any complaints with reference to 5G, really speaking. Sometimes when you roll out a new technology for the first time, you'll find lot of complaints. In fact, there's been a lot of positive feedback, and we've not had anything in terms of complaints, which is technology related. Of course, complaints can come when a customer doesn't have a satisfactory experience. But I would say the launch of 5G and the uptake of 5G, wherever we have launched has been very good. While 5G is giving a good experience, it is also releasing capacity on the 4G networks wherever it is being implemented, and that is also improving the experience on the 4G itself. So, it's been good in all ways.
Vodafone Idea Limited CC-Dec24.pdf · 2025-02-12
Okay, thanks Vivek for your question. Your first question is relating to network expansion. And can you just repeat what exactly was the question relating to network expansion?
The gross ads figure is quite evident. So, ultimately if there is any improvement in subscriber metrics without any change in the gross ads trajectory, then it has to come from the improvement in retention of the subscribers or better quality of subscribers which has been our focus for the last few months. The quality of acquisition and whatever can be d one in that direction has been in focus area for us. I would also want to highlight here that in terms of our share of gross ads, it is much above our customer market share. So, that is an area where we are already doing well. We are able to attract custom ers. Our challenge has been sometimes to retain them because of the lack of investment which we have seen for a fairly long period of time. But as we return back to investment, and I would like to emphasize that what we have seen until now is just the beginning of the larger investment that we have. Only with the investment which have been incurred and actually if you look at the results in December-January, only probably the rollout under November and part of December would have had any significant impact, which is only 10% of our new rollout of sites. So, really speaking, the larger investment is still to happen. But even with this minimal investment and with a fairly wider communication to our customers about the steps we are taking to improve the network , the pace at which we are rolling out, we have started to see early green shoots and which is reflected in the VLR for December and January combined, becoming positive in 11 circles, which is a major improvement. And we believe as the pace gathers and as the small investment becomes more formidable and when we are doing this larger investment, definitely these trends will improve for the better. We are very confident about this. Your second question was relating to tariffs. In a normal scenario I would ha ve said that a time gap of one year is ideal between two tariff increases. However, I would add to that given the place where the telecom industry in India is today, where the return on capital is whether you take the market leader or you take anyone else, if nobody is returning their cost of capital and in that scenario, I would say it is fairly justified. If it can be faster, it could be nine months also, I would say. So, in a normal situation, a 12-month period is ideal to kind of make any changes on tar iffs. But given where the industry is today, a faster tariff change is probably a possibility and the need of the hour.
Vodafone Idea Limited CC-Sep24.pdf · 2024-11-14
Thanks, Sanjesh, for your question. I had mentioned a little bit in my opening remarks that we had first incurred the quick win capex, which has given us a result of a 14% increase in capacity and 22 million in coverage. Of course, that was just the start of quick-win, which could be deployed quickly. And as you have yourself mentioned in the guidance we gave that we are looking at putting in a capex of about 80 billion in the second half of the year. Now, it is difficult to predict a timeline as to when this will start turning around in terms of loss of subscribers. But definitely we can see that with the investments that we have made, some of the improvements are obvious, although at this point of time, they do not convert to increase in revenues or reducing the loss of subscribers. As we make these investments, which will be based on new supplies ,the impact of which will be more pronounced with us coming out of some of the subscriber losses in the quarter which is the impact of the tariff increase, my gut feel would be that by the end of this financial year, we should have turned around the trajectory. But this is just an expectation. I don't think it is possible to give you an exact timeline on when this could turn around. But our effort is now to start leveraging the benefit of the investments which have been there on the ground for some time, and also the larger investment which is now going to come in the second half of the year.
So, actually two things. One is as happens following any price increase, the overall number of subscribers do contract, which has also happened this time. However, this time we have had an additional factor that a significant number of customers have gone to BSNL and they have been a beneficiary this time, which has not happened in the past. And that has also been compounded by the seasonality factor because this quarter is seasonally a weak quarter. Now if we look at all those things, I would say that the impact of SIM consolidation, I have always maintained that with every price increase, the SIM consolidation, what is left to be consolidated is less and less. That impact, although it is there, but it is not as pronounced as it has been in the past. However, the impact of BSNL has been there in this quarter. We have seen that impact reversing quite quickly from August to September, from September to October and from October to November. And in some ways we are inching towards the position which was there before the tariff increase. But yes, some loss which has happened during this period will still take some time to unwind, and we believe it will happen based on customer experience because there is definitely a differential in experience for a customer who is a high user of either data or voice. So, I would say that the quarter gone by represents a quarter which is a normal impact post the tariff increase and as you would have seen, if you just look at the delta of what the subscriber trend was Q4 to Q1, everybody has seen a much more pronounced decline on those past trends in Q2. So, this is across the board, and we do expect that some of these trends would start turning around with the seasonality coming back with some people who adjust their consumption or usage to the increased price points or basis the increased price temporarily before they come back to their original usage pattern and of course the impact of BSNL reducing as we go ahead. And we should see a reversal of this trend, but it will take some time.
Vodafone Idea Limited CC-Dec23.pdf · 2024-01-30
While the larger part of the reduction is coming from seasonality, there was some impact also because of reduction in energy cost in a few circles. Also, we continue to take initiatives in terms of taking actions to reduce our cost which a re 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 that also contributes to the overall cost improvement.
We have been shutting down 3G in the five circles where it is no w shut down completely. Some districts have been shut down earlier . It's not that this has all happened in this quarter. What we mentioned is that in these quarters , these five circles all the 3 G sites have been completely closed. The other circles also many 3G sites have been closed. Fundamentally given a choice we would want to shut down all the 3 G sites and use the spectrum for 4G which provides better capacity, better experience and of course eliminates one technology from a site which is generally an optimum way to operate. However , the continuation is only based on the number of 3 G devices and progressively we are continuing to close down 3G sites. While I cannot give a definite timeline, I would expect that in the next financial year we should also be able to close the entire 3 G network as the number of handsets reduce on the network.
Vodafone Idea Limited CC-Sep23.pdf · 2023-10-30
It is a mixture of a few things combined together. One is that, of course, the market intensity is higher and the overall customer acquisitions and maybe the additions of customers in the industry is also increasing. As I have also probably said in the past is that the subscriber trends we see over the last few years is a mix of new subscribers coming in and multiple SIMs being consolidated. It is a little difficult to assess what is the impact of SIM consolidation. But I think probably that impact has reduced over a period of time, we should start seeing the real subscriber grow th figures. As far as Vi's performance is concerned, I think besides the normal performance improvement that we are focusing on in terms of getting better subscriber additions during the quarter and I think after a long time while the figure is quite nomin al, we've also seen a positive trend on the consumer side of the postpaid business. So, I think that is also helping, but one of the main reasons for the trend in this quarter is that we have participated in a government scheme and that has brought in significant number of new subscribers including 4G subscribers, so that is one of the things which has helped us in this quarter. But even without that, we would have seen an improving performance in this quarter over the previous quarter.
No. We continue to incur some minimal CAPEX and that will continue as to the necessary CAPEX in terms of where we are operating today. However, our growth CAPEX in terms of expanding our 4G coverage and also rolling out 5G which will go side by side will happen based on the new funding being tied up. In the interim, since our cash generation will now be more than our debt servicing, we intend to use this for meeting our regular requirements, regular CAPEX and then to some extent this will go towards reducing the vendor outstanding. But any significant CAPEX will happen after the new funding is tied up.