Vodafone Idea becomes India's third 5G telco with Mumbai launch

　　India's third-largest service provider, Vodafone Idea, has announced the launch of 5G services in Mumbai, the financial capital of the country. This comes two and a half years after its competitors, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, launched 5G in October 2022.

　　According to media reports, Vodafone Idea plans to make 5G available to its subscribers in Delhi, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Patna and Mysore by next month. This would be followed by a launch in several circles (service areas), including Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashtra and Chennai.

　　"Our focus is on introducing 5G meaningfully for our users. We have invested in building a robust 5G network, by deploying the latest 5G technology. By expanding our infrastructure, we are delivering a network that is ready for the future – seamless, powerful and built for the demands of modern connectivity," Jagbir Singh, CTO at Vodafone Idea, said in the press release.

　　Vodafone Idea awarded network gear contracts to Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung last year. It is using a 5G non-standalone (5G NSA) network architecture to deploy 5G services.

　　The third 5G player's entry will likely increase market competition. Vodafone Idea's unlimited 5G plan starts from INR299 (US$3.4) per month, significantly cheaper than Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio's 5G plans.

　　However, it's unlikely that Airtel and Jio will lower their rates. It is only recently that Airtel and Jio introduced 5G tariffs, having previously offered it at 4G rates, and both have recently seen an increase in average revenue per user (ARPU). With no compelling 5G use case yet, however, their customers on 4G rates may be unlikely to switch to Vodafone Idea because of cheaper 5G rates.

　　On the other hand, Vodafone Idea has launched 5G at a time when the technology's ecosystem is establishing itself. The number of 5G devices is much higher now when compared with two years back. In addition, 5G data consumption is also growing. The recent Nokia Mobile Broadband Index report says that pan-India 5G traffic increased threefold (year-on-year) to reach 7.6 exabytes in 2024. 5G data usage accounts for 43% of total mobile broadband data consumption in 2024, up from 20% in 2023, says the Nokia MBiT report. This could help Vodafone Idea with faster 5G monetization.

　　Over the last year, Vodafone Idea has raised equity of INR260 billion ($3 billion), including the INR180 billion ($2 billion) Follow-on Public Offer (FPO) and promoter contribution of INR40 billion ($0.4 billion). A significant part of this is being used to expand the 4G network and to deploy the 5G network.

　　The service provider plans to deploy 75,000 5G basestations in 75 cities across 17 circles over the next three years. This is much lower than Jio and Airtel, who have deployed more than 460,000 5G basestations so far.