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Informist, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026

By Arya S. Biju and Shakshi Jain

MUMBAI – Vodafone Idea Ltd. has lined up a capital expenditure of INR 450 billion for the next three years, Chief Executive Officer Abhijit Kishore said in a management meet with analysts and investors Wednesday. In the next three years, the telecommunications company will focus on sustained subscriber addition, delivering double-digit revenue growth, and thrice the current cash earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation, Kishore said. 

Of this planned investment of INR 450 billion, INR 250 billion will be funded through debt from banks and INR 100 billion will be a non-funded facility. "... we are not really looking at any equity infusion right now in the business because we think that we have adequate funding through the instrument that I just spoke of to take care of the investments," Kishore said, when asked about whether the company will consider equity to fund the capital expenditure.

The company said it had been witnessing positive response, including customer additions, from markets where it had invested to expand its network. As a result, the company saw revenue growth in 14 out of the 22 telecom circles. Vodafone Idea expects this trend to continue going forward. The company is aiming to bridge the fourth generation network gap in all of its 17 priority markets over the next 12–18 months. "...And in those five markets...as far as 2G (second-generation) is concerned, we'll make sure that all those 2G sites are converted into 4G...So from a network deployment point of view, there's a large amount of investment which is going to get into the network (expansion)," Kishore said.  

Over the next three years, Vodafone Idea will have to pay spectrum dues worth INR 490 billion, the company's management said. "I think we are in a comfortable position to pay up the spectrum as well as the capex investment through the bank funding," Kishore said. Further, the company said it is not talking to the goverment on spectrum dues or any kind of a relief on this. Over the next 20 years, the company's spectrum dues will be INR 1.20 trillion, depending upon the spectrum holding pattern, the management added.

With the recent relief granted by the government on the company's adjusted gross revenue dues, the company believes the worst is behind it, the managemement said. The company's adjusted gross revenue liability is frozen as of Dec. 31 at INR 876.95 billion and it has to now pay only "small amounts" to the government over the next 10 years. The reassessment of this has already started and is "in full swing," Kishore said. "The speed is very good, it's very encouraging. We are deeply engaged at different levels because all of these reassessments happen at different places," he said, adding that the reassessments are expected to close fast. 

The adjusted gross revenue due overhang had resulted in reduced funding towards the company and subsequently led to lower investments and deployments of network impacting its service experience. This also took a toll on the company's brand perception and eroded customer confidence and eventually led to the company losing customers, Vodafone Idea said.

Asked if the company would be able to achieve the stated revenue and cash EBITDA guidance for the next three years even if the hike in tariff rates gets delayed, Vodafone Idea said it was confident of achieving the double-digit sales growth even if the hikes are delayed. However, the company expects the cash EBITDA target to be a "little here or there" in case the tariff rate hikes are delayed. Vodafone Idea clarified that it is not looking at a tariff hike on its own. "We'll wait for the leaders to take a call on that and then we'll evaluate," Kishore said. 

The company believes that it sees enough headroom and opportunity in terms of premiumisation to be able to upscale its average revenue per user. The company had been benefitting from premiumisation despite having no changes in the tariff rates in the past four quarters. On gaining market share in the sector, the company said it is not eyeing an aggressive gain in market share over the next three years. 

"We are not planning any circle to be shut down at all. Rather, we are wanting to strengthen them," Kishore said, when asked about the company's plan for the telecom circles where it is making losses. Further, the company said it will continue adopting artificial intelligence aggressively to optimise costs wherever possible. "...we have implemented a lot of use cases in our network operation centre in Pune and in IT (information technology) operations. So we are actually replacing the people with the machines," a top company official said. 

Vodafone Idea late Tuesday reported a consolidated net loss of INR 52.86 billion for the December quarter, down from a net loss of INR 55.24 billion reported in the September quarter and INR 66.09 billion net loss in the corresponding quarter a year ago. A one-time income of INR 10.78 billion helped Vodafone Idea narrow its net loss in the December quarter despite its finance costs rising in early twenties on a sequential basis. The company's consolidated net sales for the quarter grew a little over 1% sequentially and around 2% on year to INR 113.23 billion. 

On Wednesday, shares of Vodafone Idea closed over 1% higher at INR 9.95 on the National Stock Exchange.  End

Edited by Tanima Banerjee

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