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Buoyed by investors like GQG lapping up shares reserved for anchor investors, Vodafone Idea CEO Akshaya Moondra on Wednesday expressed confidence that the FPO will sail through, providing the loss-making telco funds for network expansion that he hoped will help arrest the loss of subscribers. In an interview with PTI, the top honcho said the just-concluded anchor book allocation that drew in big global and domestic names has been a "good start" and gives VIL confidence about the progress of the fundraising exercise. Moondra said he does not believe that Vodafone-Idea's "somewhat later entry" into 5G would impact the telco in the long run. In fact, the company has the benefit of learning from how the market has evolved in the last 1-1.5 years since the launch of 5G and accordingly calibrate and fine-tune its investments in this space. The VIL CEO asserted the significant need for a tariff correction, saying the industry has not been returning the cost of capital even in the 4G era, a
India's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio added 31.59 lakh mobile users while rival Bharti Airtel's subscriber gain came in at 3.52 lakh in October 2023, as per monthly subscriber data by TRAI. There was no relief for the troubled telco Vodafone Idea on subscriber front, as it lost 20.44 lakh wireless subscribers in October. With the addition of 31.59 lakh users, Jio's total wireless subscriber count climbed to 45.23 crore in October from 44.92 crore in September. Sunil Mittal-led Airtel's wireless subscriber gain of 3.52 lakh pushed up the telco's user tally to 37.81 crore in October. The subscriber losses of Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) dragged its wireless user base to 22.54 crore in October, the data by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) showed. Cash-strapped VIL has been battling fundraising woes and subscriber losses.
Telecom operator Vodafone Idea has recently awarded a network gear order of around Rs 200 crore to Chinese company ZTE, three sources aware of the development said. The company has given orders for broadband network equipment in telecom circles of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh (MP-CG), the sources told PTI. "Vodafone Idea has awarded an order of around Rs 200 crore to ZTE," one of the sources said. The matter has been brought to the notice of the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), which manages the Trusted Telecom Portal and provides clearance for permissible telecom gears, they added. An email query sent to Vodafone Idea elicited no response. Two sources mentioned that the order has been given for Gujarat and MP-CG circles, while one of them mentioned that the order also includes the Maharashtra circle. The Cabinet Committee on Security on December 16, 2020, approved the National Security Directive on Telecommunication Sector, which mandates ser
Debt-ridden telecom operator Vodafone Idea needs funding to make investments and vendor dues will be cleared once it starts generating cash from the investments, a top official of the company said on Wednesday. Vodafone Idea (VIL) CEO Akshaya Moondra during the company's earning call said that the experience on 5G is not much different for consumers at present unless the network is made ubiquitous. "It is very clear that we need to get funding to make investments and improve our operating cash flows to be then able to improve our vendor payment situation. Currently, we are prioritizing all payments which are essential for the continuation of operations," Moondra said. He said that all vendors have been very supportive during the difficult period that the company has been going through. "As we get the funding and start making investments, as we see cash generation from operations is going up, that will be the basis of our starting to clear the backlog," Moondra said. He said that t