Welcome to the Indus Towers Limited second quarter ended September 30th, 2022, earnings call. For the duration of the presentation, all participant lines will be in listen only mode. After the presentation, the question-and-answer session will be conducted for all the participants on this call. In case of a natural disaster, the conference call will be terminated as an announcement. Sitting with us on the call today is the senior leadership team of Indus Towers, Mr. Tejinder Kalra, COO, Mr. Vikas Poddar, CFO, and Mr. Dheeraj Agarwal, Head Investor Relations. Before I hand over the call, I must remind you that the overview and discussion today may include certain forward-looking statements that must be viewed in conjunction with the risks that we face. I now hand over the call to our first speaker of the day, Mr. Tejinder Kalra. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Kalra.
Thank you, [Operator]. Good afternoon, everyone, and a very warm welcome to all of you. Hope all of you guys had a great Diwali. Thank you for joining us on the earnings call of Indus Towers for the quarter ended September 30th, 2022. Joining me today are my colleagues, Mr. Vikas Poddar, CFO, and Mr. Dheeraj Agarwal, Head Investor Relations. You all must be aware that following Bhumit's exit, myself and Vikas are jointly responsible for the functioning of the company till such time a permanent replacement is put in place. The board is evaluating all talent options, and we'll make an announcement soon once the right successor is finalized. Before I begin our agenda today, I would like to reiterate Indus Towers' commitment to work towards government's digital inclusion goals by enabling connectivity across the nation.
Our team of brave hearts with their commitment and dedication is the main driving force behind our achievements as we continue to deploy towers in the most remote areas with diverse topographies to bring connectivity. During the quarter, we installed towers in the remote locations, such as border areas in J&K, Namsai area of Arunachal Pradesh, Bethamangala in Karnataka, thus enabling internet and mobile connectivity in these areas. At the same time, we also braved severe floods and heavy rains in several areas during the quarter, and yet our field force was unwavering in their commitment towards maintaining the network. We remain steadfast in our resolve to continue our efforts in the future as well. Now moving on to the key themes I would like to discuss today. I start with major industry developments.
The government continues to take steps to simplify and accelerate the deployment of telecom infrastructure in the country in order to facilitate swift rollout of 5G services. The launch of Gati Shakti Sanchar Portal has eased the right of way application process through a single window. This significantly eases the site acquisition process and leads to a much faster creation of 5G infrastructure in the country. This is indeed a great positive step. Now from a 5G rollout perspective, I would like to highlight the successful auction of 5G spectrum in August, followed by the start of 5G services in less than three months. The two main operators have already announced pan-India rollout of their 5G services in the next 18 months. This shows the commitment of the government and the telecom industry towards making 5G a reality soon across the country.
It also underlines the role of infrastructure players in providing 5G-ready sites at speed. Indus Towers is already progressing well on this path of preparing its sites for 5G implementation. In terms of the opportunity, we expect initial benefits to be in the form of revenue from additional loading. There will be need for more capacity with increase in adoption of 5G services, which will eventually drive the demand for setting up more new sites. Now, taking cues from the global 5G adoption, the trend remains encouraging. As per the statistics mentioned in the Ericsson Mobility Report, global 5G subscriptions grew by 70 million in the June quarter to 690 million and are expected to reach around 4.4 billion by the end of 2027.
Additionally, the number of commercial 5G service providers also increased from 210 in March 2022 to 218 in June 2022. The report also estimates that 5G penetration in India will reach 40% to about 500 million subscriptions by 2027, as we also highlighted in our previous earnings call. The data consumption story in India also continues to be robust, and 5G network rollout will further the adoption. This is going to increase the data momentum growth even further. The total data consumed across the top three operators combined grew by 20% year on year in the June quarter. The average data consumed per user per month across the top three operators stood at more than 19 GB for the quarter, repeating a year-on-year growth of over 19%.
As per industry observers Ericsson and Nokia, India's data usage is almost the highest in the world, and the average data consumption per user per month is expected to increase to about 40-50 GB in the next five years. The constantly growing demand for data and upgradation to 4G and 5G should continue to drive the demand for capacity addition, both in the form of loading and in sites, which remain the primary growth driver for Indus Towers. From an operational performance perspective, we witnessed a healthy growth in addition of macro and lean towers. During the quarter, we registered a net addition of 1,452 macro towers and 1,746 corresponding co-locations.
Our total towers and co-locations at the end of Q2 were 1,87,926, and 3,38,128 co-locations respectively, each growing by 2.4% and 1.7% on a year-on-year basis. Our industry leading tenancy ratio was largely flattish at 1.80. In addition to macro towers, we also added 1,535 co-locations on linear towers in Q2 compared to 1,021 co-locations in Q1. As highlighted in our previous calls, we continue to see good traction in our linear towers. We expect the demand for linear structures to grow further with the increased densification requirement and subsequently our linear structure portfolio to contribute meaningfully to our business performance.
I would also like to move now to the ESG, which is one of our key priorities as a responsible organization. Our efforts are directed towards identifying and targeting material points in environmental, social, and governance dimensions, which will help the company in its sustainability journey. I am pleased to share with you that we have identified key points across dimensions and finalized the targets. We have also finalized the implementation roadmap to achieve these targets and started working on it. In the upcoming quarters, we would be sharing progress on all these targets. I would now request Vikas to take you through the operational and financial performance of the quarter ending September 30, 2022, and I look forward to your questions. Over to Vikas. Thank you all.
Thank you, Tejinder, and a very good afternoon to all the participants on this call. I'm pleased to share with you the financial results of the second quarter ended September 30, 2022. Before I go to the financials, let me spend a minute on our operational performance, wherein we have seen a pickup in our tower and co-locations, co-location additions in quarter two, as Tejinder mentioned. We closed the quarter with a total tower and co-location count at 1,87,926 and 3,38,128 respectively, each growing at 2.4% and 1.7% year-on-year basis, and 0.8% and 0.5% on quarter-on-quarter basis.
Over and above the net addition of 1,746 co-locations on macro towers, we've also added 1,535 co-locations on lean towers. As we have highlighted in the past, demand for linear structures is rising, based on the customer requirement for densification. Moving on to the financial performance. Our reported revenue grew by 15.9% year-on-year to INR 79.7 billion, wherein the core revenue from rentals was up by 12.5% year-on-year to INR 47.8 billion. Our revenues include the impact of both the tapering of exit revenues, and as shared by us earlier, the company had settled its old dues with its customers and deferred the recognition of the revenue arising out of such settlement till the time of ultimate collection.
A part of revenue from this settlement was recognized in Q2 of last fiscal based on the payments received, as we had highlighted in our commentary for Q4. In quarter two of FY 2023, the impact of deferred recognition on gross revenue and core revenues was INR 11 billion and INR 5.5 billion respectively. Adjusted for both the exit revenue and the impact of deferred recognition, our gross revenue and core revenues grew by 2.1% and 3.5% respectively year-on-year. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, our reported gross revenues and core revenues from rentals grew by 15.5% and 13.3% respectively. Again, after adjusting for the aforementioned two factors, gross revenue and core revenue were up 1.4% and 2.3% respectively.
Reported EBITDA was down 22.7% year-on-year and 21.1% quarter-on-quarter to INR 28.1 billion. Our EBITDA margin declined 17.6 percentage points year-on-year and increased 1.6 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 35.3%. EBITDA was impacted due to increase in provision for doubtful debts, which is accounted under other expense as we explained in the last quarter's earnings call. In this quarter, we made a provision for doubtful debt of INR 17.7 billion. This number appears high as part of the payment received during the quarter was towards settlement of past issues, which otherwise would have been received against the receivables outstanding, thus resulting in lower provision for doubtful debts by about INR 11 billion.
Adjusted for the impact of one-off items like the lower exit revenue, the provision for doubtful debts, and deferred recognition, EBITDA was up 1.1% year-on-year and 2.1% quarter-on-quarter. Our reported energy margins were at 14.6% in quarter two. The energy margins were also impacted due to deferred recognition. We continue to drive sharp focus on optimizing energy costs by taking appropriate measures, especially towards reducing diesel consumption. Our reported profit after tax declined by 44.1% year-on-year and grew by 82.7% quarter-on-quarter to INR 8.7 billion. Adjusted for one-off items, our profit after tax was down 3.5% year-on-year and up 6.4% on a quarter-on-quarter basis.
Our cash flow from operating activities for the quarter stood at INR 11.2 billion in quarter two of fiscal 2023, compared to INR 19.4 billion in quarter two of last fiscal, 2022. Our free cash flow for the quarter was at -INR 4.7 billion, which was impacted by the collection challenges we currently face and also the higher CapEx cash flows during the quarter. Our reported pre-tax return on capital employed and post-tax return on equity for the past 12 months were lower on both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter basis at 19.2% and 24.2% respectively. Again, impacted by the provision for doubtful debts. Next, I would like to provide an update on the receivables situation. Our reported trade receivables increased by INR 2.5 billion during the quarter.
Adjusted for the provision for doubtful debt and the payment received towards settlement of past issues, our receivables increased by INR 9.4 billion. We are closely engaged on this matter and working towards the payment plan whereby the customer has agreed to pay a substantial part of the billed amount till December 2022 and 100% thereafter. It will also clear all the accumulated outstanding dues as on December 31st, 2022, between January 2023 and July 2023. We continue to work on improving our receivables position and keeping a close eye on the situation. In summary, our strong operational performance during the quarter is quite encouraging from the demand standpoint. Our financials continue to be impacted by the collection challenges we face from one of our customers.
With the 5G rollouts already in motion, we remain optimistic and prepared for the opportunities presented to the telecom infrastructure space as a whole. I would now request the moderator to open the floor for questions and answers, please. Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question-and-answer interactive session for all the participants who are connected to the audio conference service from their end. Due to time constraints, we would request if you could limit the number of questions to two to enable more participation. Hence, the management will take only two questions per participant to ensure maximum participation. Participants who wish to ask questions may please press star one on their touchtone enabled telephone keypad. On pressing star one, participants will get a chance to present their question on a first in line basis. To ask a question, participants may please press star one now. The first question comes from Mr. Kunal Vora from BNP Paribas from Mumbai. Mr. Vora, will you please ask your question now?
Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on the dues, receivables. Vodafone Idea has offered convertible debentures to American Tower. Had you considered that as an option? How comfortable would you be in receiving payment rather than cash?
Thank you, Kunal. Thank you for the question. We are aware of the developments that have happened with our competitor. I think, for us, we haven't really considered this as an option. We already have a payment plan agreed with the customer, which we already shared. We would really want to see that payment plan sort of materializing. So far, we haven't really considered the option of convertible debentures.
What gives you the confidence that this payment plan can be like they will be able to make the payment?
Well, the confidence is basically from the fact that there have been positive developments. I mean, couple of months back, we have seen the reforms package. We've also seen government support to the sector. Apart from that, we've also seen the customer participating in the 5G auctions and still investing in the market. We are quite closely engaged and monitoring the situation. Of course, they have also sort of indicated that they are working on the funding plan and they are sort of close to finalizing that as well. I think we are watching the situation closely and we are seeing improvement. Hopefully, we will see the payment plan sort of materializing as I said.
Yeah. My second and last question wanted to understand how you're looking at the revenues coming in from the 5G rollouts. The operators have told us about rolling out almost pan-India 5G by end of fiscal 2024. How should we expect your revenues over the next few quarters? Would you see any clear lift from 5G rollouts? And would it be like front-loaded, or will it be back-loaded or back-ended?
Kunal, hi there. Thanks for the question and, see, from a 5G perspective, as we have said earlier, the initial revenue from 5G is gonna come in from, loading of 5G equipment on the existing sites, and that's the trend we are currently seeing from the orders that we have received from, the customers. We already are doing RFIs around those sites and, the revenue realization will eventually build up. Like unlike, you know, the same way as we have seen on the 4G site, standalone 5G sites eventually will come, but that looks to be, you know, some time away or a few quarters away.
You know, once the data traffic on the 5G network continues to build up, in order to build for capacity and for any coverage of hotspots, there may be a need of standalone sites initially, and then eventually those 5G standalone sites will also come. We see a positive development on our revenue in the next quarters once the loading builds up on these existing sites. After about a year and a half or so, some more standalone 5G sites coming up as well.
Okay. That's it from my side. Thank you.
[Vora]. The next question comes from Mr. [Sha] from Dalal Capital, Mumbai. Mr. Shah, you may ask your question now.
Thanks for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes, [go ahead].
Sir, my first question regarding the recent NCD raise of INR 200 crores. Can you give us a color as to the purpose for which the fund is being raised?
I think, first of all, this is driven by one of the requirements that we have from the regulator wherein Indus is classified as a large corporate, and we are required to comply with the provision of raising minimum 25% of our incremental long-term borrowing by way of debt security. As per that circular, we, you know, we are really expected to comply with the provision.
Okay.
Our NCD issuance of INR 2,000 crore, we have basically taken approval from the board, and we would be issuing the NCDs in tranches in order to comply. This was basically a regulation that was applicable on a block of two years starting FY 2022. FY 2023 is our second year wherein we need to comply. Then even subsequently, the same regulation would still be applicable in 2024 and 2025. We will be issuing tranches as and when necessary.
Understood.
As the usage of the fund is concerned, of course, we will be using this towards our investment and growth. Obviously, you can see the rollout activities picking up. We will certainly need the funding for our CapEx.
Sure. Fair enough. Sir, my next, second question is regarding the deferred revenue recognition. Can you clarify? I think it's INR 11 billion and INR 5.5 billion, right? You said in the revenue [crosstalk].
Yeah. INR 11 billion of, we had a deferred recognition of INR 11 billion in our total revenues.
Okay.
INR 5.5 billion in our core service revenue. INR 5.5 billion is of course part of the INR 11 billion.
Understood. Fair enough. Thank you so much. That's it from my end. Thank you.
Thank you, [Mr. Shah}.
Thank you very much, Mr. Shah. Participants who wish to ask question, you please press star one now. The next question comes from Ms. Falguni Dutta from Jet Age Securities Private Limited from Kolkata. Ms. Dutta, you may ask your question now.
I just have one basic question. The revenue that we mentioned, revenue from rentals was INR 4,780 crores for the quarter, and the gross revenue is INR 7,960 crores. What comprises the difference there?
Basically, within our revenue, our gross revenue, we have two sources. One is the rental that we earn from our towers. Then we also have our energy revenue, which is largely coming from the pass-through of the energy cost that we bill to our customers. The difference, just to make it simple for you, Falguni, the difference between the two lines is the energy revenue.
This is the energy revenue would mean the cost that we incur is just a breakup of the revenue between cost and the net that we get. To understand this correctly, because the energy cost is the cost we would be incurring, which we are passing on to the consumer. One is that, and the other is the net rental composition. If you were to understand the gross revenue breakup, is that correct?
That's right. Yes.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much, Ms. Dutta. The next question comes from Mr. [Pranav Shukla] from [Navi] Mumbai. Mr. [Shukla], you may please ask your question now.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I just, you know, trying to get a sense on the realization. We have seen, you know, the realization coming to around INR 41,000 standard thereabout, you know, for the past few quarters. If I adjust for that, you know, one of the one-time revenue. Should we take this as a, you know, the base revenue and subsequently the, you know, the rent revenues have a tendency to grow from here?
There will be some impact of, you know, renegotiation happening as and when those tenancies, you know, are complete, their ten years or so. Hence, we might see the renegotiation impact going on. Just trying to get a sense on that.
[So far], let me put it this way. The average revenue per tenancy of INR 47,000 that you see is obviously overstated because of the deferred recognition. We also mentioned in our previous calls that this also reflects the renewal discount that we have already agreed with our customers. That is roughly INR 500 per tenancy from an overall portfolio perspective. That's also baked in the numbers. Coming to the deferred recognition and the sort of jump that we see in the average revenue, I think that's pretty much come to an end. We have received all the payments pertaining to those settlements. Going forward, our average revenue should get back to much more normal levels.
As far as the future renewals are concerned, like we have shared in our previous calls, this renewal discussion and agreement that we have reached is a very good reference point, is a very good sort of benchmark for all future renewals, and we don't expect any major change to happen. Any future renewal coming up in the subsequent years will also be pretty much on the same lines, and to that extent, we will see some movement. There is basically growth coming from 5G loading and so on, which will obviously take our average revenues up, and there will be in future maybe renewals and things like that. It will be a mix of couple of things. Does that answer your question, Pranav?
It does. My second question would be on how should we see the energy margin trending? Is there any renegotiation or new things happening on that front?
I will probably just touch upon this energy margin, and then I will maybe request Tejinder to also add a color from an operations perspective. Energy margin in this quarter of course is very positive because of the deferred recognition. We continue to be on a pass-through model with our customers. Like I've always said in the past, pass-through means no gain, no loss. Because we have, you know, usually some difference arising because of the actual cost and the expected cost. By the way, these actual cost or expected cost can vary because of several factors that we face in our business. There could be seasonality, there could be high diesel consumption sometimes due to weather disturbances, there could be timing differences in electricity bills and so on.
We do face these gaps and that really causes the energy margin to fluctuate. We are trying our best to sort of drive a reduction in diesel, which will obviously have a huge bearing on these gaps. Further, I think you heard Tejinder talking about the ESG initiatives. Even our ESG initiatives and all the focus on the operational efficiencies would help us in sort of bringing this under control going forward. Anything you want to add, Tejinder?
No, you largely covered it, Vikas. Pranav, I think this energy margin is, as Vikas rightly said, this is a function of, you know, the actual cost incurred versus the expected cost at the operator side. You know, there could be variations at times given the, you know, the weather disturbances which we continuously continue to face. The sites need obviously a [24x7] operation, and if the EB availability at the sites is not consistent throughout, you know, you need to resort to the diesel generating sets, and therefore the diesel consumption during bad weather time and long EB outages tends to fluctuate, and therefore the expected cost versus the actual costs vary.
This leads into some kind of reconciliation challenges with the customer as well, which ultimately, you know, gets ironed out over time, but reflects in the quarterly outcome. Broadly, that's where we are. We are obviously on a continuous journey towards reducing diesel as much as we possibly can through a lot of diesel replacement solutions. Also, EB continues to improve year on year, which obviously helps towards the ESG initiatives that we have in partnership as well.
Sure. Thank you and all the very best.
Thank you, Pranav.
Mr. Shakya. Participants who wish to ask questions, you please press star one now. The next question comes from Mr. Rakesh Sethia from HDFC Mutual Fund, Mumbai. Mr. Sethia, you may ask your question now.
The opportunity. Can you help us understand, you know, based on your initial discussion, how large the 5G rollout order for you guys? I mean, you know, how should one think about it? What percentage of sites or what percentage of the co-locations probably would have loading between the next 12-18 months, if you can share some of the details around that. Secondly, would it be possible for us to quantify, ballpark, what kind of a revenue upside are we looking from the 5G loading?
Yeah, thanks for the question, Rakesh. See, typically the way we have seen these technology shift rollouts happening, the operators over a period of time will tend to cover 5G on all the sites they have with us, or they have in the network. We have seen this already happening in the 4G space. 100% of the operator sites have 4G rolled out on them, and this has obviously taken a long while. Now they are beginning to set up standalone 4G sites as well. You know, over a period of time, I think the 5G curve follows a similar pattern. We already have seen good amount of orders coming in from the operators.
The announced position from the operators is that within 18 months, starting from, you know, September end, they want to actually cover out almost 500 towns in the country, which would largely cover the, you know, entire coverage area that they have. I would expect a good percentage of the sites already being deployed with 5G. As the capacity builds up on these sites and data consumption scales up, they would possibly then be coming up new 5G sites or standalone 5G sites as well. This would take, as I said earlier, a little bit more time beyond the 18 months period of rollout that we are talking about.
As for you know, the extent of loading that one can expect, I mean, we have already indicated in the previous call that we expect the 5G loading revenue to be higher than the 4G level that we are seeing. This is largely because of the higher power, you know, loading that is coming onto the sites and with the operators because they have chosen a sub-gigahertz frequency. Some loading from the additional antennas up to the 700 GHz would need a separate set of antennas in some cases. That kind of antenna loading that will come on the sites as well. A substantially higher loading compared to the 4G loading that we already have would come as the 5G loading revenue builds up.
Okay. On the first part, would it be possible to quantify that based on your initial discussion, you know, what percentage of the sites we're talking about? I mean, I understand that eventually 100% of the sites would move to 5G like it happened in the 4G. But I'm just trying to understand, you know, what's the sort of near-term plan. The reason I'm asking is, I mean, of course, you can go to 500 towns, but, you know, what percentage of that towns? I mean, the operators would always have a choice, right? I mean, they can go cluster by cluster. They may not need to do 5G on the entire town in one go. So, I'm just trying to understand that, you know, from a near-term perspective, let's say over the next 12, 18 months.
Are we talking about 100% of the 5G sites? Are we talking about a probably fraction of those sites? If any visibility you have around the same based on your initial discussion with the operators.
See, obviously the operators are also yet finalizing the overall plan, but from the initial understanding that we get from them over an 18-month window, my understanding is anywhere in the vicinity of about 50%-60% of the sites the operators may be covering. I'll not be able to give you any operator-specific details, but that's largely looking to be the plan if operators are talking about 500-odd towns, then that would be the minimum they would need to do.
Secondly on the complete loading onto revenue, if you can also sort of clarify. My understanding was that some of the radios and the antennas are much lighter weight in the 5G technology. Doesn't that have any bearing the way 5G loading or the loading revenues work for us, or that do not have any bearing?
See, while the 5G loading, 5G antennas or even the integrated antennas that you have on the 5G site, yes, they are lighter in weight. As I said, the power that we need to set up at the sites or the load, power load of the sites is higher in case of 5G and a big chunk of the way the loading revenue is structured, you know, there's a big component coming from the power side, as well. Since that is, the power is higher, therefore the loading revenue will be higher. We are expecting somewhere in the vicinity of 5%-10% of our total revenue to be coming from 5G overall over a period of time.
You're talking about like the non-energy part of the revenue, right? Or we are talking about the aggregate energy plus non-energy part.
No, I'm talking about the rental part of the revenue or the base revenue.
Okay, understood. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much, Mr. Sethia. The next question comes from Mr. Raashi Agrawal from UTI AMC Limited, Mumbai. Mr. Agrawal, you may ask your question now.
Hello. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is largely around Vodafone Idea and its receivable. I would just try to bifurcate the questions into a couple of ways. First is, sir, can you just tell me how much was the original total receivable from Vodafone Idea before the write off which was taken in the first quarter, the provision which was made in the first quarter? And how much is the outstanding right now after the second quarter's provision? And what is the total receivable provision still outstanding from Vodafone Idea, and what is the age? That's the first question. I'll come back with the second question after this.
Raashi, unfortunately, we cannot disclose customer-wide information. Your questions regarding what is the receivable of Vodafone and how much is outstanding after the provision and aging, etc. Unfortunately, we won't be able to answer that in specific terms.
I understand. Should we expect any further write-offs because with what the admission from the previous one is that no major write-offs would be coming in the next quarter or largely all the write-offs have been accounted for. But and now this quarter even seeing a larger provision. How much can we expect in the, you know, in the next, say, second half of this fiscal?
Yeah, let me explain. This is very important point you raised. I think, first of all, we have already shared the payment plan that we have agreed with the customer. As per the payment plan, like I mentioned, I would like to just sort of reinforce and reiterate that the payment plan also includes payment of the accumulated receivables in the seven months from January 2023 and July 2023. Currently we are providing, because there is a delay and there is an aging issue, and we are basically providing in order to hedge our balance sheet and de-risk the receivable situation. I mean, based on the payment plan, currently we are not expecting any write-off.
The payment plan envisages collection of the full dues, and hopefully there will not be any write-off involved. Now, coming to the other point within this question that you raised, which is about the large provision in quarter two, I would like to explain that. While from an optics perspective, you see INR 17.7 billion provision for doubtful debts, but if you recall, I did explain that part of the payments that we collected were basically towards the settlement of past dues, past issues, which otherwise if we had not settled that, then those collections would have been applied towards the outstanding receivables. If that was the case, then our provision for doubtful debt would have been much lower.
The INR 11 billion that I mentioned, which we collected towards the past dues, would have been applied towards the current dues. To that extent, I think it's a bit technical. The real bad debts or the real provision for bad debt needs to be looked at in conjunction with both the numbers. Does that make it clear there?
The provision towards the current receivables would be around, say, INR 6.7 billion. Is that number-
Yeah. If you look at it that way, yes, it would be INR 6.7 billion, if we basically take the total collections in this quarter, which is certainly lower than what we had in the previous quarter.
The previous quarter's INR 1,200 was entirely towards the, which was nothing towards the past receivables. This in this INR 1,700 contains around INR 1,100 of the write-off from the past receivables. Now, if the understanding is correct, the entire past receivables have been now written off, right? From the current new billings, the payment plan will take care of it.
Yeah. Sorry, just a correction, Raashi. You said the entire past receivable has been written off. It's not the case of write-off. Like I said, we don't have any write-off. What I mentioned was the.
I mean, provision.
Past issues have been resolved, and we had deferred the recognition till the time of ultimate collection. In this quarter, since we have collected the full amount, we have recognized. Hence to that extent, the payment received towards our normal receivables is less.
Sure, sir. Now, coming back to the second question. What is the future accounting policy we are looking to adopt? I mean, just wanted a clarification as about the deferred revenue, and how are we looking to account for the new billings which will be done? Plus, how would the energy charges would be dealt with?
Well, as far as the accounting policies are concerned, we don't have really any change in our accounting policy. We basically had deferred the recognition, like I said, because we wanted to be sure about the collection and that has been the policy, so there is no change. What really could change is because we are constantly, you know, reviewing and reassessing the situation. Like I shared in the previous quarter, we did adopt a more stringent ECL computation, and as a result, we had made a provision of doubtful debts of about INR 12 billion in the previous quarter. That was based on the stringent ECL computation, which was a bit of a change.
We will keep reassessing, and in third quarter, if we feel that, things are not progressing as we expect, then we might adopt a more stringent approach again. As of now, there is no change. If there is any change, we will certainly let you know.
Sure. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you, Raashi.
Thank you very much, Mr. Agrawal. The next question comes from Mr. Arun Prasath from Spark Capital, Chennai. Mr. Prasath, you may ask your question now. The next question comes from Mr. [Ajit] from Aamara Capital, Mumbai.
Okay. Thank you. My question is, maybe in terms of the Vodafone Idea, first of all, I want to ask that the payment plan which you have submitted to them, which you have disclosed in the media also, have they agreed upon that with how they are, how the Vodafone Idea is, you know, how the management is, you know, giving the answers to your, to your basically, the format which you have given to them in terms of the payment plan. Secondly, what percentage of revenue is basically contributed by the Vodafone Idea in your total revenue because you have stated that you are going to stop their, you know, services if they are not able to pay back in the month, by the month of November or by the month of December.
Can you give some brief on that thing also?
Ajit, on the first point, the payment plan is basically what the customer has proposed, and that payment plan was discussed in our board and we have sort of agreed in order to support the customer as a temporary support. As far as the percentage of revenue is concerned, I think, like I said, I'm unfortunately not able to disclose or share any customer specific information here, so we will not be able to share, you know, what is the percentage of revenue from Vodafone. Sorry, could you just repeat your last question, Ajit?
My question was that, what's the, you know, top line revenue which I think that you are not able to disclose in the call. My third question is in terms of the dividend policy going forward, I mean how the company is doing, I mean in the, you know, FY 2023 and FY 2024, maybe in terms of the dividend announcement because we are facing a lot of pressure from the Bharti, from the Vodafone Idea. How the, you know, dividend policy is going to be here, especially the FY 2023.
Coming to dividend, I think our policy is very clear. The dividend is of course linked to our free cash flow. We will certainly assess the free cash flow situation at the end of the year and make the decisions accordingly. We are fully committed to the policy and currently there's no change in the policy. I think, Ajit, you also mentioned about Indus stopping services. I just want to put it on record that it is purely speculation. We have not mentioned this anywhere or sort of made any such statement. I just want to make sure that it's noted that it is purely speculation.
We are working with the customer to sort of execute the payment plan and, you know, trying our best to make things normal.
any tentative timeline, you know, at least you can share, you know, in the next three or four months, next, you know, six months it can be sorted out. If because of the call at least you have some idea also because, you know, lot of investors are waiting for this, you know. At least you can give some tentative timeline in, let's say in the next five months, six months, you know, things will settle down.
From a timeline perspective, I just want to reiterate what we shared earlier. From a timeline perspective, the payment plan is getting a substantial part of our monthly billing every month till December 2022. From January 2023, we expect two things to happen. As per the payment plan, we expect 100% collection of the monthly billing and whatever will be the accumulated outstanding as on 31st December 2022, our payment plan basically says that those outstandings will be cleared in a phased manner over 7 months, starting January 2023 till July 2023. I think from a timeline perspective, this is the plan that we have agreed, and this is the best indicator of the current situation.
Great, sir. Great. Thank you for, you know, answering the questions and, all the best to you and your team. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Pradani. The next question comes from Mr. Utkarsh Mehrotra from Schroders, Singapore. Mr. Mehrotra, you may ask your question now.
I thank you for the opportunity. Just one question from my side. Previously you had some collateral, which basically helped us.
Offsetting delay in getting the amounts from one of our key counterparties. But going forward, given the fact that there's been an argument delay in them raising capital. In a worst case scenario, do we have anything similar planned going forward? Or how are we thinking about worst case scenarios, in case there's further delay in them raising capital to pay us? That's all. Thank you.
Utkarsh, I think first of all, regarding the security that we had, as we had shared earlier, the entire security was sort of restructured, and we received the money in quarter four of last fiscal and also in this current quarter through basically the equity injection that the promoters have done. We received almost INR 30 billion in March and then some more funds in the month of July. Currently, our primary pledge or the security that we have had has been completely monetized, and that is no longer there. Now, coming to the worst case scenario, like I said, we are closely monitoring.
We are also assessing our exposure, and we will be making the right calls on the provisioning. If our ECL computation and methodology and our practices need to be tightened, we will also adopt that in this quarter, depending on how things progress. Really, I mean, it is very difficult to predict what would be the scenario because that would be crystal gazing. I think to a large extent, we will keep watching. Then by the way, the significant provisions that we have made in the last two quarters have already given us a very significant hedge on our balance sheet. I think to that extent the risk is less.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. We'll take another question. The next question comes from Mr. Arun Prasath from Spark Capital , Chennai. Mr. Prasath, you may ask your question now.
Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Sorry, last time the call got disconnected. I think my question is similar to the line of other participants regarding receivable. This was mostly answered, but just to summarize what you are saying is that, by December 2022, the receivable should peak out, and then post it will only decrease. Is it the right understanding, sir?
Yes, that is the expectation, Arun, based on the payment plan that we reviewed.
Okay. Understood. Secondly, on the lean towers, you shared some data points this time. Can you give a little bit color on what is the cumulative lean towers count and cumulative colo count on those lean towers?
Yeah. I think we started reporting lean towers from previous quarter. This quarter, like I said, it's close to 1,500. The previous quarter was 1,000. We also had a few sites that we rolled out in the last year. I would say, sorry, the base of lean towers is somewhere in the range of 3,000 or little over 3,000. It's still a small number compared to our total portfolio. This is certainly picking up and we will see sort of this segment growing much faster in the coming quarters.
This is not part of the total towers reported or total co-locations reported, is it right?
Yeah. What we report is the macro towers. Because the segment is very small, the segment of lean is very small right now. It's not significant and hence not included in the reporting.
Understood. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mr. Prasath. Did you have a follow-up question from Mr. Kunal Vora from BNP Paribas, Mumbai? Mr. Vora, you may ask your question now.
Thanks for the follow-up. You did a booking of INR 1,100 crores of past due, of which INR 500 crores pertain to energy, and there is no additional cost which has come against that. How should we look at this? Does it mean that the cost has already been booked in the past and the energy margins which we are looking at for the past quarters, they would have been better considering the additional revenue?
Yeah. Kunal, the way it works is, I mean, whenever we have these gaps, as Tejinder and I spoke about, which is the gap between what is expected and what is actual and so on, we do have these sort of deferred recognition. We defer the revenue recognition till the gap is resolved. It had really accumulated, and we resolved this. Certainly, I mean, if we were to really go back,
Look at each of those periods where we had deferred the recognition. Certainly, the energy margin would change slightly. Yeah, you're right that, you know, the INR 5.5 billion that is sitting in the energy revenue does not have a corresponding cost because these are basically the revenues coming from the past periods.
Similarly, we have seen within last two, three years, the energy margins have been consistently negative. It's possible that we could have some offset of that also in the subsequent quarters?
Well, like I said, I mean, we did sort of resolve a lot of these past issues as part of the sort of one-time settlement that we did. I don't think we expect to really see such lump sum recognition going forward. Of course, this gap of you know, expected and actual obviously continues in the digital world. To that extent, I think some reversals will keep happening, some recognitions will keep happening, but I don't expect such large quantums going forward.
Understood. Lastly, on CapEx, can you talk about your expectations going forward, considering that, large 5G investments will be underway from telcos. Will that require some additional investment from your end as well?
Let me take that, Vikas. On a 5G site, while you know as I said 5G is coming as a loading on our existing sites. It could be a combination of new investments should the site need some electrical infrastructure to be upgraded or some mounts to be put up and so on. Some sites may be already ready to receive the 5G equipment, and there could be additional capacity sitting on some of those sites because we are ultimately into sharing business, and some sites may already carry that capacity.
In some sites where we are kind of already sitting at the edge from a capacity perspective, we may need to increase the electrical infrastructure and therefore investment to that extent may be required for mounting the antennas or the radio equipment on the towers, so some mounts. It would be a kind of averaged out cost on the towers when one is talking about hosting the 5G equipment.
Understood. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thank you, Kunal.
Thank you very much, Mr. Kunal Vora. The last question comes from Mr. Vivekanand Subbaraman from Ambit Capital, Mumbai. Mr. Subbaraman, you may ask your question now.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I have only one question. When you spoke about the loading needs about 5G, you mentioned that the frequencies, you know, you mentioned about 700 MHz. You mentioned about multiple antenna requirements and power requirements. Could you highlight the differences between 4G loading and 5G loading, in the context of, you know, there are any opportunities for you, as far as 5G is concerned, and why you believe that 5G will be the bigger loading opportunity for you than 4G? Thank you.
Yeah, Vivekanand. See the difference between 4G and 5G in terms of the equipment or the split radios, there is none. There is a split radio when it is coming, if it is coming on the 5G space. In 5G, typically, there are two types of equipment. When it is in the 700 M Hz space, you have separate antennas and separate radios going up, similar to what you see in the 4G space. When it is, you know, in the 3.3 gigahertz space, 5G solution, you have the antenna and the radio integrated, and both of them are going up onto the tower from a 5G rollout perspective.
The power load of that equipment is little higher compared to what you may see on the 4G radio side. Therefore, as I said earlier, the rental revenues, because leasing revenue constitutes a big chunk of load and power, you know, the way it is structured from a co-lo perspective. Because of the higher power load of these sites, the ARPT from a leasing perspective is higher for 5G compared to the 4G. I hope that answers your question.
Just one small follow-up. Jio is the only one that has 700 MHz, and they talk about carrier aggregation. Where they say that they are able to utilize all three bands of spectrum in tandem. Does this still entail separate antenna and, you know, loading equipment, the 700 MHz or are they talking about some other technologies there?
Carrier aggregation is primarily combining different frequencies and different carriers to give a better output. That's primarily what carrier aggregation is. Ultimately, each spectrum frequency that needs to be fired would need a radio. If it is 700, they need 700-MHz radios to fire the 5G 700 spectrum. And if it is 900 or 1800 or 2100 or 3.3, each one of them have separate radios. Radios need to be deployed at the sites, and then those different frequencies get aggregated, which is what is carrier aggregation to give a better throughput or better capacity and so on. When it comes to the antennas, I mean, there are only two ways.
Either you deploy standalone 2-port 700-MHz antennas on the tower, or you have multi-port antennas already deployed in which 700 band is covered. That means you have a wideband multi-port antenna which would cover from 700 to, let's say, 3300. If that is available already at the sites, which in Jio's case some sites they have, then they don't need to put up additional antennas, otherwise they will have to.
Okay, this is clear. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Subbaraman. At this moment, I would like to hand over the call proceedings to Mr. Tejinder Kalra for the final remarks.
Thanks, [Operator]. To sum up, our strong performance during the quarter is very encouraging, and we expect the increased demand for telecom infrastructure to continue. On the receivable front, we are constantly engaging with the customer and monitoring the situation vigilantly. We are excited about the 5G rollout scaling up across the country, which we believe would act as the next leg of growth for the entire telecom industry. Thank you all for joining the call today. Good luck to us.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for connecting to audio conference service from Airtel, and have a pleasant evening.