NEW DELHI: Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) will launch its 5G services in the country in the next six to seven months, said Vodafone Idea CEO Akshaya Moondra on Tuesday.
Moondra, while speaking to analysts the day after its quarterly result, said that by then there will be clarity on how to monetise the technology in the country. “I think we will at least have the benefit of seeing what the 5G adoption is doing. I think significant investments have been made on the 5G front, with significant Capex being incurred. The challenge that we see today is that there is no monetization happening. In fact, the way 5G is priced today actually results in a discount on 4G because whatever is being used on 5G is not counted at all,” said Moondra.
India officially launched 5G technology in October 2022. Subsequently, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have already launched 5G services in more than 7,764 and 5,000 cities, respectively. However, the third-largest telecom operator, Vodafone Idea, is yet to start its commercial 5G services.
For the pilot phase, the company has installed 5G BTS in two cities: Pune and Delhi.
The company has said many times in the past that it won’t roll out its 5G services until it has funds. “Having made such large investments with no monetization happening, I think the industry does need to see some movement towards monetization,” said Moondra.
He further added that the company’s strategy will be based on that. “Because I would say that once 5G starts getting charged, we will have to see the adoption of 5G in that scenario. Currently, this is a free industry; the adoption is not really representative of what the customer is willing to pay for the higher consumption of the same application, which may happen in many 5G use cases,” said Moondra.
Meanwhile, the telco managed to reduce its losses to Rs 6,990 crore in the third quarter ending December 2023, compared to Rs 8,746 crore in the previous quarter.
The company’s ARPU witnessed a growth of Rs 10 year-on-year to Rs 145, while on a sequential basis, ARPU went up by Rs 3. The company will also phase out its 3G users in the next six months
