Vodafone invests Rs 4,000 crore in UP east circle

Company invested Rs 480 crore during 2014-15 fiscal

Telecom major Vodafone has so far invested about Rs 4,000 crore on its network expansion and infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh (East) telecom circle.

During the 2014-15 financial year, the company invested Rs 480 crore. The fresh and cumulative investment has helped the company cover almost 97 per cent of the area in the circle, including 71,000 villages, Circle Head Pankaj Thapliyal said here on Tuesday.

Commanding a subscriber base of nearly 17.6 million, Vodafone has 28 per cent of the revenue market share in Uttar Pradesh (East) circle.

He said the company was continuously upgrading its infrastructure to offer better value proposition to customers. During the last financial year, Vodafone expanded its network of 2G and 3G sites, which now stand at 9,800 and 2,400, respectively.

“Our 3G revenue has grown by 180 per cent and 50 per cent of the enabled handsets use data in our network,” he said.

Thapliyal said customers were now moving towards 3G services in a big way, including in the rural areas, which was showing remarkable growth numbers. The company has a network of 800 Vodafone stores across different formats, besides retail touch points of 2,25,000.

3G contributes up to 55 per cent of data revenues and 60 per cent of data volumes. The data segment is growing at 90 per cent and data revenues contribute up to 35 per cent of incremental service revenue.

Uttar Pradesh (East) is among the largest telecom circles in India in terms of population and has almost all the major telecom operators vying for market share.