Vodafone Idea on Wednesday announced its first quarterly results since the completion of the merger in August. The country’s largest telco posted a loss of Rs 4,974 crore for the second quarter ended September 30 as it was hit by customer migration to lower offerings.

The company now plans to raise up to Rs 25,000 crore and monetise its fibre assets to provide further balance sheet flexibility. Vodafone Idea said the board has set up a committee to evaluate the possibility of raising a capital of Rs 25,000 crore.

A company statement said the promoter shareholders — Vodafone group and Aditya Birla group — have indicated to the board that they would contribute up to Rs 11,000 crore and up to Rs 7,250 crore, respectively, in capital. The capital raising is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this fiscal.

While the merger of Vodafone India with Idea Cellular was completed on August 31, the quarterly results include that of Idea Cellular up to August 30 and Vodafone Idea from August 31 to September 30. Therefore, they are not comparable to the earlier periods.

The Telegraph

Vodafone Idea said that while headline tariffs remained stable during the quarter, customer migration to lower offerings led to a 4.7 per cent sequential decline in average revenue per user to Rs 88.

This, coupled with the loss of 1.3 crore customers during the period, led to a decline in revenues over the first quarter. The company said that revenues came in at Rs 12,023.8 crore compared with Rs 12,944.1 crore in the preceding quarter.

“The merger of two large organizations with complementary strengths has opened multiple opportunities to draw synergies across the board. We have set on a strong course with meticulous pre-merger planning and rigorous post-merger execution. In just 75-days of operations, several milestones have been achieved, ahead of timeline. We are well on track to deliver the synergies envisaged at the time of merger, Balesh Sharma, CEO Vodafone Idea, said.