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Highlights
- Vodafone Idea (Vi), the third-largest telecom operator in India, has been surviving due to the help of Indian government.
- The government, being the largest stakeholder in the telco, has ensured that it does not go under.
- To make a comeback, Vi has been rolling out new 4G sites and expanding the 4G population coverage in India.
Andrew Bonwick
Vice President of Product Development at Relm Insurance
Madhav Sheth
CEO of Ai+ Smartphone
Stephen Rose
CEO Render Networks
Vodafone Idea (Vi), the third-largest telecom operator in India, has been surviving due to the help of Indian government. The government, being the largest stakeholder in the telco, has ensured that it does not go under. To make a comeback, Vi has been rolling out new 4G sites and expanding the 4G population coverage in India. Along with that, the telco has been rolling out 5G throughout India. However, the rollout seems to be slow. The people who are experiencing Vi’s 5G are very limited.
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Firstly, there is still no 5G site of Vi in many areas such as Chhattisgarh. As you read this, the telco is working on that. Second, even if the sites come and the service is launched, it is only done in a very surface level manner. Like for MP, Vi’s 5G is only available in select cities, and most of them do not even likely have wide coverage. This is potentially the reason why Vi’s 4G and 5G subscribers are not growing.
Vi continues to prioritise 4G rollout. Vi’s 5G rollout has now reached 83 cities across all 17 priority circles, but the company continues to prioritise 4G network expansion and capacity upgrades alongside its 5G deployment. Despite the rollout progress, Vi’s total subscriber base remained at 192.8 million, indicating that the 5G expansion has not yet triggered a major step-change in scale.
The telco does not have the money to go aggressive on 5G. Yes, there have been many statements and updates around the fundraising, but that fundraising has not happened yet. Most of the fundraising is still in paper, and one of the statements that the management always makes is this – they are in active discussions with the banks. The telco’s total 4G/5G subscriber base has only grown by a very small margin in the last two years. This is despite Vodafone Idea scaling its capex (capital expenditure) to new heights.
