To fulfill data demand, Vodafone-Idea to invest Rs 60,000 crore in next 3 years

Vodafone India and Bharti cellular are gearing up to take on the neck and neck competition by main rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel in the telecom sector. 

At present, Vodafona and Idea are trying to finish final formalties for completion of the much-awaited merger of the two firms. After the merger, the entity would become single largest in the sector. 

Now, it has been reported that both the industry biggies, Idea Cellular and Vodafone India are planning to invest Rs 60,000 crore in infrastructure to meet the demand for data in the country. 

Experts believe that the data usage in India would grow by six-fold and reach 120 petabytes in the next three years, up from the current 20 petabytes now. 

Currently, India is second largest telecom market globally and first in terms of data usage.

A person close to the development told Livemint, "The merged entity will invest about Rs 60,000 crore over a period of three years to ramp up its infrastructure to meet data demand, which will help it achieve expansion and vertical growth."

Meanwhile, Closure of Vodafone and Idea's mobile tower sale deal, and raising FDI limit in the Aditya Birla group firm are holding the government's approval to the merger of two operators' to create the largest Indian telecom player, according to sources.

According to a senior official, the government is awaiting for closure of Vodafone and Idea mobile tower sale transaction with American Tower Corporation.

"Approval to Idea and Vodafone will be granted once their mobile tower sale is completed," the senior government official, who was here to take part in the Mobile World Congress starting tomorrow, told PTI.

People closely involved in the Vodafone-Idea merger process said the transaction closure is a procedural issue, and will be done very soon as ATC has already applied for government's permission to make the investment in towers assets of the two companies.

"Besides ATC deal closure, Idea has applied for raising FDI limit in the company to 100 per cent. The clearance on the same is awaited from the Ministry of Home Affairs," an industry source said.