Vodafone Idea is Walking the Talk with Capex Spends in Q3 FY25

Reported by Tanay Singh Thakur February 12th, 2025 at 11:25 am

Vodafone Idea has deployed 900 MHz band across 15,000 sites for 4G and 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz bands across 10,400 sites. With the 900 MHz band, Vi has improved indoor connectivity in 16 out of its 17 priority circles while with the 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz bands, the telco has improved the network capacity.

Highlights

Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL), the third-largest telecom operator, recently announced Q3 FY25 financial results.
The results showed that the revenue for the quarter was Rs 111.2 billion, a QoQ improvement of 1.7%.
While this is marginal revenue growth, the telco was still able to scale its capex to new heights.

vodafone idea is walking the talk capex

Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL), the third-largest telecom operator, recently announced Q3 FY25 financial results. The results showed that the revenue for the quarter was Rs 111.2 billion, a QoQ improvement of 1.7%. While this is marginal revenue growth, the telco was still able to scale its capex to new heights. This was possible due to the successful fundraising through equity during early part of the year. Vi said that its capex (capital expenditure) spend for Q3 FY25 was Rs 32.1 billion. This took the capex for the nine months of FY25 to Rs 53.3 billion.

Read More - Vodafone Idea SonyLIV Prepaid Plans

The interesting part is what happened in the previous two quarters. In the Q1 of FY25, Vi's capex stood at Rs 7.6 billion, and increased by over a 79% to Rs 13.6 billion in Q2 FY25. In Q3, this grew by around 136% to Rs 32.1 billion. Vi said that it plans to further increase capex spends to over Rs 47 billion in the last quarter and take FY25's entire capex to Rs 100 billion.

The telco has deployed 900 MHz band across 15,000 sites for 4G and 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz bands across 10,400 sites. With the 900 MHz band, Vi has improved indoor connectivity in 16 out of its 17 priority circles while with the 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz bands, the telco has improved the network capacity.

The telco has planned a capex of Rs 55,000 crore for three years starting from FY25. This will be possible only if the telco is able to secure funding via debt from the banks and lending institutions. If you are wondering where this capex is going, note that Vi has been rolling out new mobile sites for improving network connectivity and coverage throughout priority circles. Further, the telco is also planning to launch 5G in the near future in select cities (commercially) for ensuring it can compete with the private telcos.

The telco's total broadband sites went up from 4.39 lakh in the previous quarter to 4.60 lakh in Q3 FY25. Alongside that, Vi increased the count of total unique towers from 1.84 lakh to 1.87 lakh.