Vodafone Idea CEO Balesh Sharma has stepped down from his post due to personal reasons, the company said in a statement on Monday.
Ravinder Takkar, currently Vodafone Group's representative in India, has been appointed as his successor with immediate effect, Vodafone Idea said. Takkar is currently a board member of Vodafone Idea and Indus Towers. Prior to his current role, Takkar was the CEO of Vodafone Romania for three years and CEO of Vodafone Partner Markets in London. He has been with Vodafone Group since 1994.
Sharma was the CEO of Vodafone Idea since the completion of the merger, and prior to that, he was Chief Operating Officer of Vodafone India. He drove the integration of the two telecom brands.
Vodafone Idea has made huge losses in the last threefinancial quarters as its revenue streams shrunk due to the tariff war startedby Reliance Jio in September 2016. Triggered by the price war unleashed byJio's entry in September 2016, the two brands had announced their merger inMarch 2017 and completed the regulatory process by August 2018. Since then, thecompany has continued to lose subscribers every month. In fact, its subscriberbase declined from 334.1 million in the March quarter to 320 million in theJune quarter.
The telecom operator posted a loss of 4,873.9 crores in the June quarter. The net loss came despite the company witnessing higher data consumption on its network and signing up more 4G subscribers. Vodafone Idea's gross debt stands at ₹1.2 trillion as on 30 June.
