ARPU slightly improved, losses a tad low but a long road ahead for VI | Q2 FY22 Conference Call Highlights
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2 years ago
Revenue for the quarter was Rs. 94.1 billion, an improvement of 2.8% QoQ, aided by pick up in the economic activities and easing of lockdown/restrictions induced by severe second wave of COVID, which impacted Q1FY22.
EBITDA for the quarter improved to Rs. 38.6 billion, up 4.2% QoQ, aided by improvement in revenue which was partially offset by increase in customer acquisition costs due to higher gross additions during the quarter and other inflationary cost increases. EBITDA margins were 41.1% vs 40.5% in Q1FY22.
Capex spend for Q2FY22 was Rs. 13.0 billion vs Rs. 9.4 billion in Q1FY22.
The total gross debt (excluding lease liabilities and including interest accrued but not due) as of September 30, 2021 stands at Rs. 1,947.8 billion, comprising of deferred spectrum payment obligations of Rs. 1,086.1 billion, AGR liability of Rs. 634.0 billion that are due to the Government and debt from banks and financial institutions of Rs. 227.7 billion. Cash & cash equivalents were Rs. 2.5 billion and net debt stood at Rs. 1,945.3 billion.
Continue to invest in 4G: During the quarter, added ~10,800 4G FDD sites primarily through refarming of 2G/3G spectrum (shutdown ~9,600 3G sites) to expand the 4G coverage and capacity. Overall broadband site count stood at 450,481, compared to 447,114 in Q1FY22. Till date, deployed over 65,000 TDD sites in addition to the deployment of ~13,850 Massive MIMO sites and ~13,000 small cells.
Vi powered by GIGAnet is India’s fastest mobile network as verified by Ookla.
Highest rated voice quality in the country as per TRAI’s “MyCall” app data for 9 out of 11 months between November 2020 and September 2021.
The subscriber base now stands at 253.0 million vs 255.4 million in Q1FY22, a decline of 2.4 million. However, the 4G subscriber base saw healthy addition of 3.3 million, with overall 4G base now at 116.2 million.
Subscriber churn has also improved to 2.9% in Q2FY22 vs 3.5% in Q1FY22.
As Q1FY22 witnessed significantly higher data usage during the lockdown, the QoQ data volume growth remained moderate at 0.4%. On a YoY basis, data volumes have witnessed strong growth of 27.1%. Data usage per 4G subscriber is now at 14.5 GB/month vs 11.8 GB/month a year ago.
Average revenue per user (ARPU) improved to Rs. 109, up 5.3% QoQ vs Rs. 104 in Q1FY22 due to increase in the entry level prepaid pricing plan from Rs. 49 to Rs. 79, in a phased manner, as well as increased the tariffs in some postpaid plans.
Conducted 5G trials on Government allocated spectrum bands like 26 GHz and 3.5 GHz in Pune (Maharashtra) and Gandhinagar (Gujarat). We have demonstrated peak speeds of 4.2 Gbps on 26 GHz band and 1.5 Gbps on 3.5 GHz. We also tested E band backhaul spectrum where we demonstrated the peak speeds of 9.8 Gbps
Cost optimization initiative: Achieved ~80% annualised savings on a run-rate basis by the end of Q2FY22 against the target of Rs. 40 billion
