The impact of competitive forces in the Indian mobile services domain, hit UK’s Vodafone Inc hard as the company probably for the first time ever, reported a decline in half yearly revenues for six months ended September 30, 2009.

Revenues in the half declined £ 1.1485 billion as compared to £ 1.5 billion in corresponding half last year. Revenues from voice declined from £ 1.24 billion last year to £ 1.22 billion this year. Messaging services accounted for revenues of £ 45 million down by £ 2 million from last year’s figures. Data services saw a rise from £ 81 million last year to £ 83 million now.

The Opex for the company shot up to £ 491 million from £ 440 million last year. EBITDA decreased to £ 357 million from £ 382 million. EBITDA margins also declined from 25.3 % to 24 %.

For the quarter ended September 30, 2009, Vodafone Essar reported a decline in voice revenues by 6.17% at £ 593 million.  Overall revenues declined by 6.75 % to £ 704 million.

ARPU in India slid from Rs 247 in the June quarter to Rs 222 by end of September 30, 2009. Postpaid ARPU dropped from Rs 807 in the preceding quarter to Rs 796. ARPU from prepaid segment dropped to Rs 181 from Rs 204 in the previous quarter.

The Minutes of usage did increase from 71,775 million minutes to 76,135 million minutes but due to tariff reductions the increase in usage could not result in rise in revenues.

The churn rate also increased to 33.3 % with prepaid subscribers accounting for most churns.

Subscriber base at the end of September quarter was at 82.8 million.  

For the parent company, revenues increased by 2.5 % to £ 11 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2009.