Vodafone has 3.3mn 3G subscribers in India, representing 2.3% of its subscriber base (vs 3.4% for Airtel and 4.2% for Idea). However, note that whilst data traffic has increased by 165.1% YoY in FY13, data revenues have increased by only 19.7% over the same period, which may indicate that growth was driven by discounted data packages or freebies.
Vodafone reported India revenues of Rs 96.4bn, up 11.5% YoY, driven primarily by recovery in voice growth. Core voice revenues grew only 7% YoY despite a sharp QoQ recovery (+4.3% QoQ). Traffic growth came in at 9% YoY as against 11% in Q3. The SMS revenue decline accelerated to 14.5% YoY, while Data revenues grew ~30% YoY. EBITDA margins in 2H13 improved by 70bps to 29%.
Blended ARPUs were up 8% YoY to Rs 193 [Same as Airtel], led mainly by a 9% YoY improvement in prepaid ARPUs to Rs 164. However, postpaid ARPUs were down 7% YoY to Rs 684.
Vodafone management expects the industry to consolidate further with average players per circle contracting further from eight to six. They also expect RPMs to harden and revenues to grow faster than FY13 going ahead backed by strong growth in data revenues.