Idea Cellular plans Rs 5,500 cr capex in FY'16

Aditya Birla group telecom major Idea Cellular was planning a capex of around Rs 5,500 crore in the current fiscal to strengthen its infrastructure.

"The capex plan for the company during FY'16 is Rs 5,000 — Rs 5,500 crore and the same goes in for network, IT and fibre laying among others," Idea Cellular chief corporate affairs Rajat Mukarji said here today. He said most of the amount would be from internal accruals and the total cumulative investment by Idea was Rs 61,000 crore, the company said. The company does not have any immediate plans to foray into the 4G space despite having spectrum in ten circles. "4G is still evolving, both at vendors level of price points of equipment, which is not yet optimal and at consumers level experience with the devices," Mukarji said.

He said even operators were trying stabilise 3G.

Meanwhile, speaking on the impact of price cap on roaming and text messages by Trai, Idea CEO (corporate), Lakshminarayana, said without quantifying the impact, there would be a revenue slide at least in the short run, but with increase in usage the deficit will make-up the loss.

"This calls for being more efficient, competitive and needs to reach out to consumers," he said.

Asked about the tariff trend, Lakshminarayana said the trend remains upwards and would depend on competitive market forces.