Vodafone Idea said on Monday Ravinder Takkar, who is Vodafone Group's representative in India, take charge as the new MD and CEO of the group with immediate effect. The announcement came after CEO Balesh Sharma stepped down citing personal reasons

Takkar has been a part of Vodafone Group since 1994. He was the CEO of Vodafone Romania for three years and headed Vodafone Partner Markets in London. He was also a board member of Vodafone Idea and Indus Towers prior to his current appointment.

vodafone idea merger
vodafone idea mergerReuters/file photo

Sharma was the man behind the integration of the two major telecom brands. He has been the CEO of Vodafone Idea since the companies merged. 

Vodafone Idea has been struggling with depleting sales in the Indian market due to the stiff competition by Reliance Jio. The company has been witnessing consecutive losses for the last three quarters due to the tariff war.

A LiveMint report states that the company has completed 11 out of 22 network integration circles and hopes to complete the remaining by June 2020. Amid the price war unleashed by Jio's entry in 2016, the two telecommunication majors merged in 2017 to withstand the pressure. The regulatory process was completed in August 2018. Though the merger was successfully completed, the integration wasn't, and the company continued to lose subscribers every month.

Balesh Sharma
Balesh Sharma, former CEO of Vodafone IdeaWikimedia Commons

According to reports by LiveMint, the subscriber base decreased fro 334.1 million in March quarter to 320 million in the June quarter. Vodafone Idea also witnessed a revenue fall of about 4.3 percent to Rs 11,269.9 crore in the June quarter. 

Though the company saw a rise in data usage on its network with the growth in the 4G subscriptions, the telecom giant reported a loss of Rs 4,873.9 crore in the June quarter with overall debt pegged at Rs 1.2 trillion as of June 30.