Vodafone Idea (Vi) shares continued to slump on Friday after a day's pause following seven straight sessions of losses. The Vi stock has been under pressure amid the private sector telecom operator's deteriorating financial position. Brokerages cut their target prices on the stock this week.
NSE
On BSE, Vodafone Idea shares tumbled as much as 8.53 percent to Rs 5.90 apiece in early trade before recovering some of those losses.
At 9:35 am, the Vodafone Idea stock traded 4.34 percent lower at Rs 6.17 apiece on the bourse, sharply underperforming the headline Sensex index, which was down 0.43 percent tracking global markets.
BSE's sectoral index tracking telecom stocks — the S&P BSE Telecom — traded 0.87 percent higher, led by Bharti Airtel, which was up more than 1 percent in morning deals.
Vodafone Idea shares have given up 39 percent of their value so far this year. In August alone, the Vi stock has fallen 22 percent.
Vodafone Idea said on Thursday that it had paid the license fee dues for the April-June period. The company's statement came following a report suggesting that the troubled company had fallen short on the payment of licence fee for the June quarter by Rs 150 crore.
Vodafone Idea — which is jointly owned by the Aditya Birla Group and Britain’s Vodafone Group — is struggling against a cash crunch. Once the largest telecom player in India, the company has been operating in the red due to low tariffs and increasing competition.
Vodafone Idea is in the grip of a crisis as its total debt stood at Rs 1.91 lakh crore at the end of June. The company has said it is in talks with bondholders to refinance Rs 6,000 crore worth of its debt that is due in the next six months.
Billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla recently stepped down as chairman of Vodafone Idea within two months of offering to hand over Aditya Birla Group's stake in the company to the government in a bid to avert a crisis for the firm.
Vodafone Idea CEO Ravinder Takkar said on an earnings call earlier this week that the company is hopeful that the government will offer necessary support to address structural issues in the sector.
Last week, the troubled telecom company filed a review petition in the Supreme Court after the top court dismissed its plea for rectification of the alleged errors in the calculation of adjusted gross revenue-related dues.
For the quarter ended June, Vodafone Idea had reported a consolidated loss of Rs 7,319.1 crore. Its revenue from operations had dropped 14 percent on a year-on-year basis to Rs 9,152.3 crore. (Read more on Vi’s Q1 earnings here)
(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)
First Published:Aug 20, 2021 10:14 AM IST
