Vodafone India has sought clarity on norms for auctions, mergers & acquisitions, spectrum sharing and merging.
“We expect Government to give a fair framework for the future auctions,” Sunil Sood, MD and CEO, Vodafone India, while sharing the company’s financial results for the fiscal 2014-15.
Sood said the Government should maximise the amount of spectrum to be auctioned so that players can provide high speed broadband as some of the products of the future will require that capability.
Vodafone India on Tuesday reported operating profit at ₹12,605 crore for the fiscal 2014-15 up from ₹10,847 crore in the previous fiscal. The operating free cash flow was ₹3,228 crore for 2014-15 compared with ₹7,647 crore in previous fiscal on account of higher capital expenditure and IRU settlement with Indus.
The net debt for the company stands at ₹47,807 crore as of March 31, 2015. It reported a 12.6 per cent jump in total revenue at ₹42, 526 crore for fiscal 2014-15 against ₹37,777 crore in 2013-14 on the back of healthy data growth and customer additions.
The telecom company’s revenue from data browsing soared by 65.5 per cent at ₹5,690 crore in 2014-15 against ₹3,437 crore in the previous fiscal.
“India’s hunger for data is rising. 3G revenues grew 140 per cent year-on-year contributing to over 53 per cent to data (browsing) revenue and volume,” Sood said.
Today, India business is the largest within the Vodafone Group in terms of data traffic, having beaten Germany. Vodafone India has 183.8 million mobile customers, out of which 19.4 million are 3G users.
On 4G rollout plans, he said, “We are conducting 4G trials as we speak. We will be rolling out during that latter half of the year in select towns.” Vodafone has bought 4G spectrum in five circles.
Maintaining that the company was in favour of net neutrality, pro choice, pro OTT and app developers, Sood said “We are also pro net equality and we believe that there cannot be any discrimination in the same service. The same service should have the same rules.”
Overall, on the agenda for the coming year, the recently-appointed CEO said that the company’s various pillars such as enterprise, M-Pesa and focus on data have been delivering. “We have 22. 5 per cent market share. I want to continue that as well as deliver bottom-line numbers,” he said.