Vodafone Idea to roll out 5G in Mumbai by March, with Delhi, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Patna set for April launch

5G

Vodafone Idea said the commercial launch of 5G services in Mumbai is planned for March

2025, while  Delhi, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Patna will see the launch of 5G services in April 2025.

Vodafone Idea said it rapidly expanded its 4G coverage and capacity during this year. In the last nine months, the telco increased our 4G population coverage by ~41 million, reaching 1.07 billion by the end of Dec'24 compared to 1.03 billion in March 24.

During the same period, Vi's 4G data capacity expanded by ~24%, driving ~28% improvement in 4G speeds. "We are on track to achieve our 4G population coverage target of 1.1 billion by March 2025 and plan to further increase it to 1.2 billion i.e. ~90% of population," the telco said in its Q3 results statement.

During the quarter, Vodafone Idea also expanded its footprint to more than 4,000 unique broadband towers, the largest addition in a quarter by the company since merger.

"We continued network enhancement by deploying 4G on sub GHz 900 band across ~15,000 sites, offering increased coverage as well as superior indoor network experience. We also

added ~10,400 sites in the 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz bands primarily to increase the network capacity resulting in customers experiencing faster data speed on Vi GIGAnet network," the telco said.

Vi's overall broadband site count stood at~460,300 as of December 31, 2024 including ~75,800 TDD sites, ~13,950 Massive MIMO sites and ~12,800 small cells. "Further, we expanded our LTE 900 presence to 16 circles out of 17 priority circles.," it said.

The firm's ARPU rose to Rs 173 in December quarter from Rs 166 a quarter ago, a rise of 4.7%, driven by tariff hikes and customer upgrading to higher plans.

The 4G subscriber base stood at 126 million at the end of Q3FY25, increasing from 125.6 million as of Q3FY24. Vi's total subscriber base stood at 199.8 million in the December quarter, down from 215.2 million in the third quarter of last fiscal.

On the back of the extensive network expansion and upgrade, the telco said it rolled out one of India’s most hyperlocal campaigns to make consumers aware about the marked improvement in the experience with Vi network. "We amplified local stories of how it is ‘Our best ever network’ at a city/district/locality level to reiterate the extent and impact of network expansion."