Vodafone India posts ₹9,805 crore op. profit

‘To complete merger with Idea in June’

Vodafone India on Tuesday posted an operating profit of ₹9,805 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2018.

It had reported an operating loss of around ₹30,690 crore for 2016-17 on account of the U.K.-based Vodafone Group lowering the valuation of its Indian business by taking gross impairment charge of €4.5 billion.

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

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

‘Tariff war heat’

Vodafone India continues to face tariff war heat and reported an 18.7% decline in organic service revenue to about ₹35,045 crore in 2017-18 compared with ₹42,927 crore in the previous year.

“Intense competition is euphemism. There was 86% decline in data price on a year-on-year basis. The good news is that we have got 10 million customers in the last quarter but there is a price to be paid for this success,” Mr. Colao said.