Vodafone Idea (Vi) on Sunday concluded a deal worth $3.6 billion with Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung for supply of network equipment over a period of three years.
Vodafone Idea Launches $6.6 Billion Capex Plan to Expand 4G and Roll Out 5G
The Cash-strapped, debt-ridden company said that the deal marks the 1st step towards the rollout of the company’s three-year capex plan of $6.6 billion (Rs. 550 billion).
As per the company, the aim of the capex programme to to drive the expansion of the 4G population coverage from 1.03 billion to 1.2 billion, launch of 5G in key markets and capacity expansion in line with data growth. “The Company has continued with its existing long-term partners Nokia and Ericsson and also onboarded Samsung as a new partner.”
The company said that the contracts will allow the company to quickly capitalize on the latest state-of-the-art equipment to offer enhanced customer experience.
It added that the learnings and insights obtained by the vendors in the Indian market over the last two years, will enable the company to embark on a more flexible and modular rollout plan by customising the services for all advanced technologies (4G & 5G).
The company added that “In addition, the new equipment will also lead to efficiency gains in energy and thus lower operating costs.”
It shall be in the upcoming quarters that the supplies against these new long-term awards will start to come in with the top priority of company being the “expansion of 4G coverage to 1.2 billion Indians”.
Vodafone Idea’s Strategic Turnaround: Investing in 5G and Regaining Market Share
It was in 2018 that the Indian arm of UK’s Vodafone Group and Aditya Birla Group’s Idea Cellular joined forces to be called Vodafone India. This came in light of losses that the company incurred every quarter post losing market share to rivals Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio.
Akshaya Moondra, CEO, Vodafone Idea Limited said that “We are committed to invest in emerging network technologies to provide a best-in-class experience to our customers. We have kickstarted the investment cycle. We are on our journey of VIL 2.0 and from hereon, VIL will stage a smart turnaround to effectively participate in the industry growth opportunities. Nokia and Ericsson have been our partners since our inception and this marks another milestone in that continuing partnership. We are pleased to start our new partnership with Samsung. We look forward to work closely with all our partners as we move into the 5G era”.
Earlier this year, the company was taking efforts towards raising capital of $5 billion to roll out 5G network service, expand 4G coverage and regain market share. For the same, it sold shares to the institutional investors, raised funds through the country’s largest-ever follow-on public offer and talked to its lenders as well.
