Vodafone Essar, India’s second largest GSM-based mobile service provider, reported £755 million in revenues or roughly Rs 6,000 crore for Q1 2009 as compared to £565 million in Q1 2008, at a 23 % increase. The growth rate in the previous quarter was 29.6 % when compared on constant exchange rates.

The firm added 7.7 million subscribers during the quarter. Subscriber base increased by 56 % over pervious year mainly helped by the company’s expansion in seven more circles in the country. The company attributed a five percentage point impact to the reduction in termination rate.

Annualised churn rate for the India operations were at 26 %.

Vodafone Essar’s other performance indicators for the quarter are as shown:

Vodafone Group revenues grew by 9.3 % to £ 10.7 billion with voice revenues at a decline of 2.1 % while data revenues grew by 19.4 % to £888 million. The company’s subscriber base now stands at 315.3 million with 8 million new additions in the quarter.

“In the first quarter the service revenue trend in Europe was consistent with the previous quarter and we continued to see good growth in India and South Africa. Our total communications strategy is delivering well, with organic data revenue up 19% and organic fixed line revenue 7% ahead of the comparative period. Free cash flow generation was strong at £1.9 billion, up 21%. The Group has reaffirmed its guidance for the full year,” said Vittorio Colao, Chief Executive.