Vodafone Idea's ₹45K cr revival plan hinges on bank funding, say brokerages

Indus Towers to be key beneficiary as telco is planning to increase tower footprint

Vodafone Idea’s (Vi’s) ₹45,000 crore revival plan would hinge largely on funding from banks as the No. 3 carrier intends to raise ₹25,000 crore in the next couple of months. With the telco planning to increase tower footprint over the next two years, its trickle-down effect on tower provider Indus Towers looks positive, said brokerages tracking the companies.

 

“Vi’s aggressive network investment plan is sentiment-positive for Indus Towers,” said analysts at BNP Paribas. The brokerage has taken into account about 42,000 co-location additions over 2026-27 (FY27) and FY28. All new tower or site additions may not go to Indus, analysts at the firm — which recently downgraded Indus to “neutral” — said, adding that the upside may not be as significant. They also noted a slowdown in new tower additions by Bharti Airtel, which is one of the two large tenants on Indus’ tower portfolio apart from Vi.

 

Vi’s new strategy announced on Wednesday focuses on network expansion, profitability, and customer retention. The company is targeting double-digit revenue growth, a threefold increase in cash Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation), and sustained subscriber additions over the next three years. The shift follows the resolution of the long-running dispute on adjusted gross revenue (AGR) which now allows the company to move into a revival mode.

 

Analysts at Citi said the capex plan implied a 15 per cent revenue CAGR (compound annual growth rate) but success would be contingent on execution, tariff hikes, and competitive dynamics. “Nonetheless, this augurs well for Indus Towers… it remains a key beneficiary of Vi 2.0,” the brokerage said in a note.

 

“From Indus Tower’s perspective, management shared that Vi aims to add 40,000-45,000 additional unique towers in next 18-24 months to take its total to 240,000-245,000 unique towers (vs 203,500 at end-December 2025), after having added 19,800 unique towers over the last 18 months, to regain coverage parity with competition in its 17 priority markets,” JM Financial said.

 

“Considering Vi’s more aggressive network rollout profile, we prefer to play Vi’s recovery story through Indus Towers,” said IIFL Securities.

 

Analysts at JP Morgan, however, said that Vi was “still in the early days of proving the success of its strategy”, which will begin with a capex rollout and be followed by arresting subscriber losses before regaining market share. “We await proof of success in arresting subscriber losses and balance sheet exposures before turning more constructive,” it added.