Vodafone India and Idea Cellular cleared the final regulatory obligation with NCLT on Thursday and appointed Balesh Sharma as the CEO . Vodafone Idea Ltd replaced Bharti Airtel as India’s top telecom operator- a stand held by Airtel for the about 15 years.
Vodafone Idea approximately has 408 million active subscribers with a revenue market share of nearly 32.2%. Reliance Jio operated with 215 million subscribers. The expected annual synergy is at ₹140 billion with a net debt of ₹1.09 lakh cr. Vodafone Idea claims a ₹19,300 cr balance after a ₹3,900 cr payout to Department of Telecommunication (DoT).
CEO speaks
‘As India’s leading telecom operator with two popular and loved brands, the company has the scale and resources to ensure sustainable customer choice and introduce new technologies. We are committed to offer both our retail and enterprise customers an excellent experience while fulfilling their evolving digital and connectivity needs via new products, services and solutions. We will offer them more network coverage, more value and more excitement,’ Balesh Sharma, CEO, Vodafone Idea Limited told.
Services offered
The spectrum portfolio is at 1850 MHz along with broadband carriers to boost subscriber base. Other like 2G, 3G, 4G, voice services, data services, mobile payments, IoT, advanced enterprise offerings and entertainment services will also be offered. The 200,000 unique GSM sites and about 235,000 km of fiber is intended to cover 92% of the population over 500,000 towns and villages.
Vodafone Idea will have 15,000 branded stores catering to 1.7 million retail touch points.
Future ahead
According to analysts, Vodafone Idea must log ₹10 billion in savings over time to sustain its hold in the telecom industry.
‘The merged entity would need to very quickly change focus from internal integration to winning externally in the market, besides investing significantly in enhancing 4G network capacity to effectively compete with Jio and Airtel‘, ex-Bharti Airtel CEO Sanjay Kapoor said.