Vodafone Idea share price slips 5% on Rs 11,644 crore Q4 loss

Vodafone Idea share price dipped almost 5% in Wednesday's early session after the telecom major reported Rs 11,644 crore loss in March quarter on exceptional items of Rs 6,141 crore pertaining to license fees and spectrum charges. This was against Rs 6,758 crore loss in the same quarter of the last financial year. In the previous quarter, the telco had reported Rs 6,438.8 crore loss.

Vodafone Idea share price fell 4.8% to the intraday low of Rs 10.10 on BSE against earlier closing of Rs 10.62. The stock opened lower today at Rs 10.35 and touched intraday high of Rs 10.73.

The stock has fallen 13.9% in one year. It has lost 7.73% in last 2 days of consecutive fall.

Vodafone Idea share trades higher than 20, 50, 100 and 200-day moving averages but lower than 5-day moving averages. Market capitalisation of the telecom operator stood at Rs 29,654.92 crore as of today's session.

Vodafone Idea reported 6% revenue growth to Rs 11,089 crore on QoQ basis. "After several years of hyper-competition which led to unsustainable pricing, we increased prepaid tariffs at the start of December 2019 across all price points for both unlimited plans as well as combo vouchers. As a result, revenue for the quarter improved to Rs 11,750 crore, an increase of 6.0% QoQ," the company said.

The company's gross debt (excluding lease liabilities) as of March 31, 2020, was Rs 1,15,000 crore, including deferred spectrum payment obligations due to the government of Rs 87,650 crore.

Keshav Lahoti, Associate Equity Analyst, Angel Broking said, "EBIDTA grew by 28.1% due to improvement in margins to 37.3% in Q4FY20 compared to 30.8% in Q3FY20. ARPU for Q4FY20 improved to Rs 121 against Rs 109 in Q3FY20, due to prepaid tariff hike effective from Dec'19. A further impact of tariff hikes in Dec'19 will flow in the coming months. Overall, Vodafone Idea's result was better than street estimates in terms of revenue, ARPU, EBIDTA and EBIDTA margins."

"Vodafone Idea's ability to continue as a going concern is highly dependent on a positive outcome on AGR matter before the Supreme Court for the payment in instalments. Next Supreme Court hearing on the AGR matter is scheduled in the third week of July. Favourable Supreme Court ruling, improvement in ARPU, reduction in loss of market share and any major investment by a big tech investor will be the key triggers for upside in the stock, " he added.

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