MUMBAI: Vodafone India reported an operating profit of Rs 6,534 crore in the six months through September, up 6.3% year-on-year, making it the second largest income and profit centres for the British telecom major globally.
Vodafone, the single largest foreign investor in the country pumping in Rs 1.11 lakh crore since its entry in February 2007, has reported an 11.2% rise in total revenue at Rs 22,902 crore, MD and CEO Sunil Sood said.
The second-largest mobile operator with over 188 million users, which is looking at “going public at the earliest when the time is conducive,” has reported a 30% margins driven data revenue, which constitutes a little over 20 per cent of the total income, Sood said.
When specifically asked about the IPO plans, which has been in the making for many years now, given the many multi-billion dollar tax disputes it has with the government, including an international arbitration, Sood said, “I don’t think any longer both (public issue and tax rows) are interlinked as we have won two tax cases in the courts.”
Sood attributed the healthy set of numbers “to the rise in data revenue that jumped 60% to Rs 3,979 crore which is 18.9% of the total revenue, and customer additions, especially the 3G and 4G ones, and stable ARPU (average revenue per user) which rose to Rs 204.”
