India's second largest telecom company by subscriber base of 311.1 million, Vodafone Indian operations are jointly owned by British telecom conglomerate - Vodafone Group Plc and Indian billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla holding a cumulative 72 percent stake in Vodafone Idea Limited.
The company's net loss was close to five times its consolidated operational revenue that fell to 1.51 billion U.S. dollars crore in the second quarter of the fiscal year compared to 1.57 billion U.S. dollars in the same period a year ago.
On Oct. 24, India's apex court had upheld the government's broader definition of revenue ending a 14-year legal tussle between the telecom regulator and the operators that dealt a 12.78 billion U.S. dollars blow to the telecom industry, which is already burdened with falling tariffs and mounting debt.
"We have accounted for the estimated liability of 3.84 billion U.S. dollars related to license fee and 2.30 billion U.S. dollars related to spectrum usage charges up to Sept. 30, 2019, including the interest, penalty and interest thereon of 4.59 billion U.S. dollars," said the statement by Vodafone Idea in its post earnings statement on Thursday.
The company is in the process of filing a review petition in the Supreme Court and has recognized a charge of 3.57 billion U.S. dollars during the quarter, the Vodafone Idea statement said.
In a separate statement on Thursday, another telecom operator - Bharti Airtel too said that it was hopeful of relief and in the absence of the same, has provided for an additional amount aggregating 3.95 billion U.S. dollars for the quarter comprising of principal, interest and penalty with respect to the license fee as estimated based on the court judgement.
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