Vodafone to launch 5G by March, 15% cheaper than Jio and Airtel: Report

This comes at a time when Vodafone Idea is backed by a ₹24,000 crore equity funding and is also expected to raise another ₹25,000 crore in debt.

Vodafone Idea (Vi) will launch its 5G mobile broadband service in March this year with aggressively priced plans, according to an Economic Times report which cited multiple people who are aware of the matter.

Jio and Airtel had 148 million and 105 million pure 5G users, respectively, as of the end of September last year (Reuters)

HT couldn't independently verify the information.

The plans may be about 15% cheaper than what Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel offer, the report said. These are Vi's major competitors who already have nationwide 5G networks.

The development comes as Vi is backed by ₹24,000 crore in equity funding and is expected to raise another ₹25,000 crore in debt after the government recently waived the bank guarantee requirement.

Vi may launch 5G initially in India’s top 75 cities across its 17 priority circles and may even target industrial hubs which are heavy data-guzzling zones, the report said.

“Over the next few months, Vi may also play with distribution costs,” the report quoted an unnamed top telecom sector analyst as saying. “Telco may increase its payouts towards dealer commissions and promotional spends to lure back high-value 5G prepaid users from its bigger rivals.”

As of the financial year 2023-24, Vi spent around ₹3,583 crore (or 8.4% of sales) towards dealer commissions, ET reported which cited investment bank Jefferies. This was much higher than Jio’s 3,000-crore dealer commissions payout at 3% of sales in the same period.

Airtel spent as much as 6,000 crore (or 4% of sales) on this.

Jio and Airtel had 148 million and 105 million pure 5G users, respectively, as of the end of September last year.

Vi recently closed $3.6 billion worth of deals with Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung, with 5G gear supplies being underway. The telco is targeting around 75,000 5G sites in three years.