Vodafone Idea Limited (IDEA) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Vodafone Idea Limited (NSE: IDEA) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Jan. 28, 2026

Corporate Participants:

Abhijit Kishore — Chief Executive Officer

Presentation:

operator

Good afternoon everyone. May I request everyone to please settle down. So I think before we start. We had an unfortunate accident today morning where the Deputy Chief Minister of our state Maharashtra passed away. So before we start the proceedings may I request a movement of silence in respect of that. Thank you. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Grand IAT Mumbai. Myself Vaibho, Fire and Safety officer of the hotel. Sa. For any. For any kind of medical emergency we have doctor or call and trained first aid team members.

While evacuating. Do not panic. Our trained emergency response team will help you to reach the assembly area. I wish you a great day. Thank you very much. Thank you. Ever now I formally thank you. To introduce the leadership team and take this session forward. Abhijit, over to you. Thank you.

Abhijit Kishore — Chief Executive Officer

Thank you Arpit. And good evening. And a very warm welcome to all of you present here in this room. As well as to all of you who have joined us online from different parts of the world. I’ll start from the extreme left. We have Ranjan. Ranjan heads our commercial function.

Must say that we are in for a big, big commercial discussions. We have already done that. And now going forward, Ranjan is a very very important player and a veteran in the telecom industry. Pankaj Kaabdev, another veteran. He is the chief legal counsel for us. Been with us for over two, two and a half decades. Ambika leads our chief regulatory and external affairs function. I’ll say fairly new to the telecom but that brings a outside in perspective. Ambika joins us last year one and a half years back from Netflix guru. Our chief HR officer again brings diverse experience.

Was last in Aditya Birla fashion. Joined us roughly around six, eight months back. Arvind I’ll say a half and half, half FMCG, half Telco for the last 10 years with us. Heads our enterprise business. Avnish Khosla again a veteran in telecom with Vodafone earlier and Vodafone Idea now for the last eight, nine years. Is the Chief Marketing Officer. Jagbir is our cto. I jokingly call him father of the Indian Telco system. You know he’s been there, is credited with actually launching most of the network in the country. And not only in the country but across many international places.

Heads the technology. And then the latest entrant is Tejas. Tejas joins us very recently from Mondelez as he’s the new CFO for us. So if you really see the diverse experience that we have and this is the team which is really accountable for Vodafone IEDI limited And to take it forward. Thank you gentlemen and lady, we’ll get you back here on the question and answer session when we start that question and answer. Since this is my first interaction with most of you, you know, let me introduce myself. For people who don’t know me, I am Abhijit and taken over as the CEO of this company five months back.

While that’s a new role, not new to the industry, not new to the company. Been in the industry now for over 30 years in different geography. Served 16 different markets over the last 30 years. Different operators, different functions. And I also joined Vodafone earlier and then Vodafone IDEA was there in the operations team. So before taking over this role, I used to head the enterprise as a director for the enterprise business in Vodafone IDEA and then from there I took over as the chief operating officer for the last four years before I moved into this role.

Interested in the industry. And hence I also chair Cellular Operator association of India as well as the India Mobile Congress. You know, as the name suggests, the construct of this meeting is a little different. You know, it’s a cross section of people, people online, people in this room, you know, analysts, investors. And hence we call it a meeting where we need to talk about our story. The story that for a long period of time we have not really spoken about. And I think as the new CEO and the re energized and the super confident team, now we need to decide on what part of the story we carry forward and what part of the story we rewrite.

We’ll have. I’ll keep this session a little interactive and obviously there will be a question and answer. But I’ll keep my session for probably 30 to 35, 40 minutes, try and give you a little background on what’s really happening in our business and then we’ll open the house for the Q and A. Okay, let me move off saying, why are we here today? Three very, very specific topics to be covered. One, on the recent development. All of you have heard about it, you read about it, but I think it is the right place for us to talk about what’s the development and what’s our perspective on that development.

Second, very important glimpses of our business, the way we look at it. You know, there are shades, there are colors which probably is not seen. And I think it’s important for us to talk about some of those shades and colors and then present our story. And then thirdly, and Very, very importantly, what’s the way forward? So these are the three distinct, you know, chapters I would say, you know, in our mind. Let me start with the recent development month of December has been a pretty eventful month for us in Vodafone Idea Limited distinct events, three of them.

The first one is the ncd. I think all of you are aware that we could raise 3300 crores on the NCD. What is more important are the factors that we could raise this. Despite the fact that the AGR clarity was not there. This was raised before the AGR clarity came. The marquee name of the lenders as well as this allows us to continue with the momentum that we have built over the last few quarters on the CapEx. And I’ll talk a little bit more about the investments that we have made and how this quantum of money really helps us drive the business to move it forward.

I think the second very important thing is what we call CLAM which is basically a contingent liability adjustment mechanism for people who are not aware. When the merger took place, Vodafone PLC and VIL had an agreement of capping of 8400 crore rupees which was for this period of seven years which expired on 30th of June 25th. That money was to be given by Vodafone. Vodafone PLC to village provided VIL makes the payment for the AGR dues. Now this was obviously subjugious. We made a payment of 2000 crore in the year 2020 and hence that 2000 crore was kind of paid by Vodafone PLC to VIL and hence the remaining amount was 6400 crores.

The agreement obviously expired in June and hence from that point of view this money was really not due from an agreement point of view. But I think Vodafone PLC as a committed promoter extended that period of agreement till 31st of December of 2025 and has also executed that in two parts. So out of the 6400 crore which is due, 2300 crores is something that will be paid in cash over the next 12 months. And Vodafone Plc has also taken 328 crore share which has been kept earmarked for VIL, which VIL can sell, you know, when the need arises.

So I think it’s a very, very defining moment from the commitment of a promoter into the company. And I think the third part which is extremely important for all of us is the agr. All of you have read about it. I Think to my mind it is definitive, conclusive, long term solution with a very clear visibility on our cash flow. We are very thankful to the honorable Supreme Court as well as to the government of India to get this done. And this is not for Vodafone Idea Limited as a company alone. It is more for the country.

It is more for the digital infrastructure that the government has the vision to put. And this is in that direction that this relief comes more as a Vodafone Idea Ltd. As well as from the country’s point of view of helping the digital infrastructure flourish in this company. Let me take a moment on talking about what this AGR is. I’m sure some of you have read it, all of you have read it in the newspaper. But from our side, this is the first part is that the dues are frozen as on 31st of December 2025. That due amount is 87,695 crores.

That’s the first point. The second point is that for the next 10 years there’s a very small amount of payment that we need to make to the government and I’ll talk about it. And the third important point is that there is a reassessment of the entire amount of 87,695 crores which has already started in the first four years. We need to pay maximum of 124 crores every year to the government. The next four years is 100 crore. And the last six years which is from 35 till 41, we pay in six equal installment. Whatever the reassessed amount is, which is frozen at 87694.

But the reassessment is going on. We have all the documents because it’s a long reassessment starting from 20067 to 1819. So it’s a long reassessment. But the good part is that the pace of reassessment at different levels are extremely, extremely encouraging. And we expect to close that very fast. And whatever is that amount which is reassessed is then kind of distributed over the six equal installment towards the last part of the payment which starts from 36 till 41. So I think you know, from our point of view this, this was the biggest overhang which was there is behind us.

And with that now let me move to the next section of saying that if AGI judgment loomed large over us over all these years, what it really did to us and we are being very, very pragmatic in saying what it did to us and it’s a vicious cycle of where we were for the longest period of time. AGR overhang resulted into funding not being there, Funding not being there resulted into investments and deployments of the network, which effectively meant network experience took a beating that led to a brand perception and a loss of customer confidence and eventually a loss of customer.

And this over the last couple of years has been the cycle that we have been there. And I’ll show you some of the data to kind of tell what I’m trying to explain. And in my opinion there was an unprecedented force which got unleashed on us over these years. Despite the fact that we were being written off almost every single day. We stood committed, the promoters stood committed, our teams stood resilient and we could do small little things that we could manage within the resources that we had. And we kept our customer obsession alive rather than getting sucked into the negativity.

Even in the toughest of the time, we kept our motto of the customer obsession alive by offering differentiated products and services, whether it is in the consumer space or in the enterprise space. And we made sure that our brand is still the loved brand is there. From there we moved also this is one of the element that we were doing. I think another important part to note here is that in all these years we could also make payment for all the bank debts that we had. We cleared 36,500 crore of loan in the last six years before the FPO.

And this was all from the internal accruals. So that really shows the efficiency on the financial part as well as the business part that we could deliver despite the tough time that we were really going through in the similar time frame. We also post merger got an equity infusion by the promoters of 27,000 crores, which again shows the commitment from both Vodafone PLC as well as the ABG Group. And then we moved on to the FPO which is two years back one of the most successful FPOs that we did. I think for the longest period of time we have been pretty inconsistent as far as the investment is concerned.

If you see here from quarter one of FY24, we have been on an average spending roughly around 400 odd crores on the network deployment. And at the same time when the competition was really Investing upwards of 4 and a half 5,000 crore a quarter, not as an industry, as one operator. So you can imagine the kind of scale which was there. And then comes the FPO money which is where we started to invest. The stronger kitty that we had, obviously we had to plan and kind of prioritize the markets that we wanted to invest in and this over the last seven quarters we have invested 16,000 crores which has reflected in increasing the brand experience through a network experience.

We added more than 100,000 sites. And let me kind of explain this. We’ve not kind of captured. We also added. So we had the infrastructure which was only 4G. The 2G was not there. We also added 2G in that we had 4G but all layers was not added. So we added the layers to make sure that the customers are able to get the best experience that they could. Because we have the spectrum availability which is pretty decent and adequate for us, we also kind of increase the capacity. One of the challenges that we have in the business or we had was to say that it is not really about the coverage in a city like Mumbai or a city like Delhi or a Pune or an urban market.

The issue was not really the coverage. The issue was how do you experience this if you have the site which is congested. So we needed to decongest the site. So when you see 43% of our capacity was increased in all these sites which then kind of gave a very different level of experience to the customers in all these market, not only the urban market but also the rural market. We also increased our population coverage by 100 million in the last six to seven quarters. We were at a 77% coverage. We have now at around 85 and a half, 86% coverage, you know, at a pan India level.

So that’s a pretty significant amount of money that we have invested in driving the experience for a customer. We also launched 5G in 43 cities as we speak today. Last week, while we have launched 43 cities, Kerala was the first circle where every single district is covered now with 5G. And you’ll see more of that coming in different cities and different circles going forward. What it did to us. I think it’s important to understand that over the last six years, if you track and all of you would have this number, we were losing in the range of 15 to 16 million customers a year.

I have just projected two years here which has come down significantly in this year right now at a 5.3 million. This includes the report that we have done yesterday. If I take the Q3 out and I’ll, I’ll at a very broad level tell you about a Q3. This number of 5.3 that you see on a negative at a cumulative basis for the year was 1.5 million. So if you really see the swing is of almost a 12 million swing barring the quarter three. The reason I’m calling out quarter three is because we by design took some corrective stance in certain circles to make sure that after the deployment of the CapEx and the investment, we start acquiring a customer which is a good quality customer.

And hence we took that call consciously to go slow on the acquisition in certain markets so that the quality of customer that we acquire is far better. And you will see that cascading impact in the coming quarters. The other part that I wanted to really talk about before I get onto the way forward is, and this question is often asked on saying, where have you guys invested? It’s not showing up at an overall level. It’s not really giving the return. I just want to give you this glimpse of saying the different ways of looking at picture the money that we have invested in this.

Currently, if I were to look at December over December revenue at a national level, we are growing at 3%. But in the markets where we have invested in the capacity and the coverage that I just explained, we have grown by 5 and a half percent, 6%, 5.7. And the markets that I have not touched, I have not touched 40, 45% of the market because obviously the kitty was a particular kitty. We needed to prioritize that. And hence we’ve kind of managed to keep the priority intact. So this is the number as far as the growth is concerned.

I also want to kind of give you a little flavor of how has this panned out. When I look at some of the markets which are very different and I picked up two market to just give an example and make the point. If you look at Maharashtra, this is the actual picture of Maharashtra before we started the rollout, which is September 24th, when we got the FPO, we had not started the rollout. If you see here, Maharashtra has 36 districts. We were less than 80% covered in 23 out of the 36 districts of Maharashtra when we started.

And we had adequate spectrum, but we had not fired those spectrum on all the site. And hence the customers were not really getting the experience that they wanted. This is what we did when we put the investment in Maharashtra. And obviously Maharashtra is one of our critical circles. So we have moved the needle from now being only four markets or five markets now, which is less than 80% and most of the markets getting covered. Now this has given me a disproportionate result. As far as a Maharashtra as a circle is concerned, what you saw there at a 3% growth at a country level in Maharashtra If I were to look at December over December, it’s a 9% growth.

What I saw there as a 5.7% growth on the invested market is 14% here. And the good news here is that in Maharashtra quarter two onwards we started to even grow and add customers month on month. Which very clearly reflects one thing, that if we are putting in the capex, we are putting in the investment in the right places, in the adequate quantity and consistently the market is responding very, very positively. As far as this is another example of up east, similar place, different markets are at a different stage. So up east was at a very different stage of network deployment by us and by competition.

This is what we did in up east over the last 3, 4, 5 quarters. And the result again is for us to see at 11% growth in the investor versus a 9% on the at a circle level. And then there are circles out of the 22 circles. If I look at a circle level growth, December over December, we are growing in 14 out of the 22. We have 17 priority circles. The way we say out of the 17 priority circles, these are all 13, 14 priority market which are going. So I think the journey has started, it’s a long haul, we’ve not been investing, we lost significant amount of customers.

So it’s taking a little bit of a time for us to get back. But I think the proof of the pudding is in eating and I think that’s very, very clearly visible moving on from here. The other thing that I also wanted to show because we also kind of at times look at a picture from one point of view which to say what is my subscriber trajectory looking like? Which is what I just showed, which has started to move. But I also wanted to show you some of the other things on the way we look at the business.

We look at seven parameters in this business. What is the number of sites that I have added, what is the broadband customer, which is the data customer that is increasing or the 4G 5G customers that are increasing, what is my revenue growth, what is my EBITDA growth, what is my ARPU growth and what is my consumption growth? Because if the consumption is there, which means that the customers are enjoying the network, they have a better experience and hence they will use. If you see all of these parameters, other than the subs, which has started to move into the positive direction, all of them are for the last six quarters moving into the positive direction.

Whether it is an arpu, whether it is the broadband subscriber, whether it is the revenue, whether it is ebitda. So if I look at it holistically, with all these things put together, six out of the seven parameters that we look at from a business point of view is pointing all in one direction. And even the subscriber loss, which was huge for us, has been absolutely narrowed. And we are very confident that we’ll kind of get past this negative customer ad very, very soon. So now this, with this key challenge behind us, like we have discussed in the previous section, this was the biggest overhang.

And hence this really marks the beginning of a new era for V. Telecom is not new to us. We have been in this business for the last three decades. We have all the right infrastructures, we have the scale, we have the distribution muscle, we have the execution power, we have the team, we have the infrastructure. When I’m saying is we have adequate spectrum. So I don’t think there is anything that is coming new to us. The only and the biggest overhang, like I said, which was in a vicious cycle, was this AGR overhang. Now this behind us, I think the game here is now to move from survival and suspicion to strength and from the intent to really move into the impact of intent of making the meaningful, constructive long term impact.

And I think that’s the journey that I’m going to talk about starting now. So for all the practical purposes it is a reset for V. It is a V2O next three years. Very, very simple, easy to understand, easy to execute. Three philosophies which we are calling it 1, 2, 3. And these are the three things that we as the team that you saw us here and every employee of this organization is committed to deliver. These are the three key deliverables that we are looking at over the next three years. Sustained customer addition, double digit revenue growth and three times the EBITDA in the next three years.

That’s a pretty large ambitious goal. And we are absolutely committed and accountable to deliver this to everybody. And the reason why we are confident is we are saying we are going to commit 45,000 crores of investment over the next three years in this business. And this is in addition to the 18,000 crores that we have already invested over the last six quarters. So if you see, over the last if in the four, four and a half year period we would be investing more than 60,000 crore of investment into this business. How is this 45,000 going to convert? Very simple, pragmatic, practical approach of investing this money.

This money is going to be invested in the network expansion, in extremely aggressive rollout of network and the strategy that we have is very simple. 1755, 17 is 17 priority market, 5 is the 5 other market and the last 5 that you see is actually a 5G. And I’ll start from the point number 3 mentioned here which is pivoting on the 5G. We over the next 12 to I’ll say 30 months will cover all the markets in the country which is urban and urban here I’m defining as 20,000 plus population towns with 5G. I also need to bridge the gap on a 4G.

So over the next 12 to 24 months in all the 17 priority markets which contributes to 99.2% of my revenue, I’ll have absolute parity with the competition in those market which gives the option and opportunity and choice to customers. And in those five markets which I am currently invested, as far as 2G is concerned, we’ll make sure that all those 2G sites are converted into 4G as well as we are mindful of the fact that in those five market there would be large set of customers who would be going as an in roamer. So we’ll make sure that all those places are also covered as far as the 4G is concerned.

So from a network deployment point of view there’s a large amount of investment which is going to get into the network. I think the Satcom is another part. It’s still a little far in future but I think our teams are deeply engaged in making sure that all those regulatory clearances are, you know, are attained. This is going to serve us good. We have a tie up with AST which is providing the service. Our sense is it’s still 18 months to two years away, but we are absolutely committed to get that into the non terrestrial network and that will help us to bring the network and the experience alive in the areas which, you know, we will not be present in and which is a difficult area.

I think the last one is extremely critical. The FWA through FWA which is on the 5G we would definitely want to get into the SOHO and the home space which we are not present right now. We are looking at some option and opportunity as far as the getting an entry into a SOHO or a small office, Office Home office concerned or home connected is concerned. So that’s largely the network game plan that we have. You know, to my mind, you know, this other thing that I really want to add on the network is that our hundred percent of our network operation is insourced, unlike many of our competitors, which essentially gives us the quality and control of service.

Which is absolutely unparalleled. Second, we have all our snoc, which is the network operating center. They are all latest AI enabled which connects right from the wireless to the fiber to the core to the transport. So state of art, backend, committed team AI put in place wherever it is required, which is, you know, kind of give this experience of the network. My sense is that, you know, network or technology for that matter, while it is a big divider, you know, it is also an equalizer at some place. And hence I firmly believe that network is a hygiene.

And nobody knows better than us that it’s a hygiene. Hence beyond the point to keep that as a differentiation is really not the right thing to do. And hence for us, service is going to be a big differentiator. And I’ll talk a little bit about what do I mean by service. This is not only customer service, this is the service about network. This is about customer service. This is about the touch point. This is about the experience in our business. Most of the customers who connect with us connect with us with either a query or a question or an angst or a clarification.

I think at that point in time, you know, empathy is very, very important. And that’s the basic of the service that we are trying to put as a framework. And I’ll give you one or two examples of what we are doing right now. We call it a project Vishwas. You know, we as we speak, look at each and every process because the fact of the matter is that the customers are now, lots and lots of them are digital native customers. The experience that they need is a digital experience. Whereas, you know, we are not a digital bond company from that point of view.

And hence we are kind of very quickly making that shift. We are reviewing every single process and making sure that every process is relevant to the customer today. And I’ll just talk of one program here that we do which is we call interaction at 50 that which is called as I 850 that you mentioned that you see here, it’s a very simple thing of saying if my process is correct as a customer, you don’t need to connect with me or call me or contact me because you know exactly what you’re getting, what you’re paying, and hence the target that we have taken of ourselves to say my interaction at a customer level should come down by 50% in one year.

We started this, you know, a couple of quarters back in April. As we speak, we’re taking a target of 50 right now we are at a 29% and similarly we also say that if a customer has come to me once then there’s no need for the customer to come back to me for the same set of problem which is what we call zero interaction Complaint Zic these are basic human intervention that we are doing. In addition to this we are obviously doing a lot as far as the AI and the technology led service differentiation is concerned whether it is on a voice biometric, whether it is to make sure that it is a self optimized network or it is the emotional intelligence connected with the through and gen AI into the call center.

So I think there is a huge amount of work that is happening as we speak to make sure that service as a differentiator remains one of the core parts to us. Moving on, I think I spoke about the differentiated. We are known in V as a company which provides a lot of differentiation. Some of them is red X for postpaid truly unlimited. I don’t know how many of you know we are the only company who really offers truly unlimited in the international roaming. There are 40 countries where you can travel. You don’t have to bother about what your data rate is going to be, what your voice rate is going to be.

It is a fully unlimited pack. We also offer unlimited on the prepaid. Again the only company in India to offer that which is a truly unlimited one. You pay X price and then entire month’s voice and data is there. So the question is, you know we are looking at all of these as the deep research trying to find out what the customers are saying, what is the insight and then making sure that all of these differentiation are created which talks to customer. We also launched something called VProtect where by now we have close to a billion calls and SMSes is what we have kind of, you know, put under the suspected spam category.

I think there is a fair bit of amount work happening as far as and on the going forward. Last part on this, rather not the last part but I think a very very critical part on this. I firmly believe now telecom is becoming a matured industry from a service industry point of view view and the more mature you become the complacency is setting in into the system and with two large players playing this complacency is a little more over index. And with all of this and the network investment that we are trying to put in I think we are absolutely at the right place to challenge the status quo with our compelling brand narrative.

More on the relationship rather than on the transaction. And watch this space over the next Few months you’ll see a lot of action happening on the way. We will connect with our current existing customers as well as intending customers. As far as the brand is concerned and the brand narrative is concerned. That takes me to the last part of our strategy before I come to the employees is the enterprise segment, I think extremely important segment for us. Currently we are catering to most of the large organizations. We divide that into three parts. We have the large corporate, then the mid tier and then the SME and then the government.

So there are four tiers. All of them are kind of catered as we speak, through our dedicated team. On the product side, we distribute that into three categories which is called connectivity, which is the basic connectivity of mobility as well as the fixed line connectivity which every organization needs. And then the second part is on the IoT which again there has different versions. Again a data point. 70 to 80% of the cars that you see in the Indian market, which are connected car are actually supported by the connectivity that we provide. So all the car brands that you see, and this is a big business, we are one of the pioneers in this, whether it is a smart gas, smart meter, all of that comes into IoT.

We have a very nice demonstration right outside this room which actually gives you a sneak peek in what really we are doing. We have the India’s only operator led AI innovation lab in Andheri where there are big corporates come and do the lab testing on different devices. It’s a very large ecosystem which is evolving and we are deeply invested in that. And then the last part is more on the emerging businesses which is, you know, where the cloud, services, security, as a service, all of that kind of comes and sits in very nicely. So whether from the breadth of the product category is concerned or the depth of the segment and the GTM or the go to market is concerned, both ways we really cut it across very well.

And that brings me to the most important asset that we have. I think people are the most important asset. Over the last few years, what we have seen, had it not been for this resilient team across the company as well as our partners, our investors, I don’t think we would have been in this position. And hence this is twofold thing. One is a gratitude, second is absolutely a promise from all the employees and for all the employees to say all of this needs to be done with all these employees supercharged. The way we look at this asset is we call it a 3 CTO which is career, capability, culture, talent and ownership and performance of ownership.

And that’s how we drive this whole thing. It’s an extremely important part of the business for us. And this is what the mantra that we live with. Employee, first, customer always. And experience is everything. And this is what every employee in the organization is committed towards. Exactly for the reason that I said. And I will now tell you why am I confident that, you know, this will be delivered. And then I’ll open the house for the question and answer. I think the worst is behind us. The AGR overhang is behind us. The journey. What has changed is the place that we stand.

Where we were standing four quarters back, two quarters back, two months back, and where we are standing today is a very, very different place. We are a very different set of people. Extremely confident of delivering what we have in mind to deliver. We know how to move this. We have done this over many, many years in different markets. And we have no doubt in our mind that we will once again do it. And then let the action speak with that. I’ll leave you with the last slide, which we showed, which again, is a commitment from us to all of you as well as all our employees are in it together.

Thank you very much for being a patient listener. I’ll now request my colleagues in the leadership team to join me on the stage and we can open the house for any questions, clarification, suggestions that you might have. Yeah, I think Arpit is the one who is kind of anchoring this. So you can. Yeah, you can introduce yourself. Sanjay. I might not know everybody, but. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, Sorry, before we start the Q and A session and we can’t hear you. Am I audible? Yeah. So before we start the Q and A session, I think my only request is given we have a larger participation here.

Whomsoever is asking a question, limit the question to one, and obviously we get a more chance. Secondly, before you get into a question, just introduce yourself. So that would be helpful. Thank you. Nice. Yeah. Okay. Just. Yeah, we can sit. Okay, I’ll sit here. Sit, Come. Yes. Sanjesh. Yeah. I hope you can hear me. Yeah, yeah, sorry. I’ll start with congratulating. Very beautiful presentation. Very confident. It gives a lot of confidence to us in terms of how to see Vodafone from here. Vodafone idea from here. I got two broader question. First on the funding, second on the deployment.

On the funding side, are we open or promoter willing to invest more equity? I can understand that part of it, but that, again, is a kind of over vicious cycle. It asks for more cash in terms of interest payment. That Again put stress on us. Are we open for the equity from the promoter? Are we open for more strategic investor? What is the view in terms of the funding? So what are we looking here? The most important part is that are we ready to onboard a different strategic partner apart from the existing promoter? And and is equity is a serious opportunity, Are we looking up at next 12 to 18 months? Because that changes the equation in terms of a cash flow that on the cash funding side, second on the deployment side, more on the CapEx.

I do want to understand what are the priority. Are we thinking more out of the box here? Because one, we are late, we need to cover a lot of ground there and then the other thing, what we have learned from the past is that we don’t want to be in a game of catching the technology. Right. We have seen a lot of companies in the race to catch the technology have actually fallen off. Are we thinking something out of the box going standalone 5G instead of trying with 5G, cutting on 4G, putting more 5G. Any breakthrough solution on the backhaul? Because I think that becomes a very big bottleneck for us on that side.

If you can give more color on the deployment because 45,000 absolute amount looks fantastic but related to the competition the number still looks underwhelming. So just wanted to understand how are we planning to up our game with the capital which is significantly lower than the competition and be a very relevant player in the market. Yeah, thank you. Thanks. Thanks Sanjay for asking that question. And I think the couple of questions that you asked in that. So one is on the equity part of it, second is on the deployment and then third is, you know, what’s the differentiation going to be and what’s the pace of deployment that is going to be? I think.

Let me take the first question first. See the way we are really looking at of a current investment structure is as we have said we are looking at a 25,000 crore of bank funding and 10,000 crore of a non funded facility. See, we are at a particular level of an EBITDA which is say a 9200 for the last year. From EBITDA to a debt ratio in an infrastructure business, anything upwards of a three, three and a half also works as a ratio. Currently we are looking at a two and a half at this point in time with the investment that we have already done.

I don’t think we are looking at an equity at this point in time, say two years later. How the situation emerges is a very, very different thing. And we will probably address it at that point in time. I don’t think both the promoters are deeply engaged committed into this business. As and when the need is felt, we will take a call today. We are not really looking at any equity infusion right now in the business because we think that we have adequate funding through the instrument that I just spoke of to take care of the investments.

Also I said that these investments will yield a particular level of EBITDA which then kind of takes care of both the capex that is required as far as and then I’ll request JAGVIR to probably add on. See the way we are really looking at this deployment strategy is very clearly as I said said which is a 5G pivoted one and I’ll give you some of the numbers and the colors why we are looking at this today. When you look at the business, almost 40 odd percent of the subscribers are using a 5G handset. Not necessarily a 5G network but a 5G handset in and this is not really concentrated on a certain geography but we need to prioritize of where we would want to invest.

That’s one. Number two is when you look at the network architecture and we are following the NSA architecture where the back of the voice falls onto the core of the 4G. Hence to that level we need to have an equal distribution. When I’m saying not financial equal distribution but the distribution in proportion equal might not be the right way in proportion to where we are going to invest the money. As far as the 5G is concerned and the 4G is concerned. We are very clear in the 17 markets that we are present and where the priority is there.

We do not have in lot of markets very large delta. As I showed you, some of the market delta which was there has already been covered. So these are two parallel tracks that we are looking at from a deployment point of view. And as I said, it’s an extremely aggressive target that we are taking for the next 12 to 15, 18 months of doing a two parallel tracks of covering the gaps where we have in these markets as far as the 4G is concerned. Because I can’t really go and then put a 5G because it might be a little bit of a wishful thinking from that point of view.

And then at the same time the places that I have 5G like I have already got 43 cities which are covered in 5G we are expanding that to another hundred odd cities over the next couple of months. So that journey continues. And obviously this with the new funding coming in, you know, takes us Into a different Jagbir. Would you want to kind of add something on the nsa? I think you asked the question on the SA side for example. So first thing is whatever the architecture and the product we are deploying, yes we are launched the service nsa but overnight we can change to sa.

So depending on the use case. Right now you can see in the market the use case for the sa they are not that many as in when the use case they picked up then within like 48 hours, 72 hours the radio support both SA and NSA. So no issues is a software program we can do from our network operation center or we can change it. And we are doing for the core network we are already getting ready with all our partners. So that is on the investment fully protected, ready for the SA as and when the use case and the revenues required is available in the market.

Second is the 5G deployment should be the smart deployment. It’s not, you know, like that we go everywhere so we have to see the handset. You have to see like, you know, like what kind of traffic coming in. You have to see the community of interest. You have to see many other parameter. So when Ajit said that we are going to do the five, five markets for example, we will have the all markets but we’ll go in the smart way of deploying. Where I deploy and immediately I get the returns on that. Transport. We are actually like last two years what are the deployment we are doing is all IP enabled, all routers.

So we are ensuring that we are getting you know like good transport architecture at the same time. We are deployed 35,000 kilometer fiber in last 18 months. 35,000 kilometer additional fiber. So we have like 350,000 kilometer fiber already. And in this plan, the way we are going every time we are giving the good capex investment actually happening on the transport to ensure we backhaul everything without any delay. Yeah. Hello, am I audible? Yeah, I’m Pranog Kshatriya from MK Global Securities. So my question is regarding your aspiration of 3x cash EBITDA in next three years. So if I just you know do like back of the envelope calculation.

So if you have to increase your EBITDA by almost 20,000 crore you will have to increase increase your revenue by around 29,000 crore assuming 70% incremental EBITDA margin. And for that you need roughly 18% revenue CAGR for next three years. If I look at, you know, even in the circles where you have invested like Maharashtra and up, you’re barely touching double digits so what gives you the confidence to reach to 80 odd percent revenue CAGR for next three years? Yeah, so thanks, thanks Pranav for asking that question. I think the way we are looking at it is two, three fold.

One, we are at a particular level of EBITDA that is there then this EBITDA has not really taken the entire yield of the 18,000 crore that by March that we have said that will be invested. We have invested 16,000. Another you know we have given a forward guidance any which way this entire amount of capex which is deployed is not really yielded the full risk. That’s point number one. Over the next three years these capex of 18,000 is going to yield results. So that’s point number one. Point number two is that the 45,000 that we are going to deploy is obviously not entire.

45,000 is going to give us the result because some of this will be deployed in the year three. But the first two year of deployment will also start giving us the result which is what we are building as far as thus the subscriber and the investment is concerned. The second part is that when we start the investment, you know what are the things that we are not able to do today is one attract the customers in the population area that I’m not covered in which will start happening. Second biggest thing for me is not really the acquisition engine.

You know the number of customers that I acquire a month is pretty decent from the network in that area we are in the range of a 30% of a customer acquisition challenge for us is the retention of the customer. Now the more network that I put and the reason the customers are leaving is not for the want of a better service which is a non network service. It is because of the non availability or the experience that they are not getting. The moment I start putting the 4G, the 5G you know there is no reason for me to believe that my customer retention will start kind of coming down which all of this adds to the customer.

So one is the quality of customer that I spoke of. Second is the retention of the customer that I spoke of. And then third is obviously you know, as and when some of the industry changes happen that will get baked into it. So all put together I think we are in a, you know, in our mind we are very clear that this number is an achievable number and we have seen that happening in the past. I mean it’s not that we are the only ones who are kind of looking at it. If you look at the industry over the last Couple of months, months or years rather.

You know you have seen a 14%, 12% CAGR which happens for the other operators. Yeah, fair enough. I mean just a follow up here is, I mean one needs to have some market share gain to reach that number because I mean, you know it’s like are we envisage, envisaging the industry itself will grow at 18% or you think you will be able to gain some market share? No, the way we are really looking at it is from a market share point of view is I think to be pragmatic and practical will be to say that we have been declining for the longest period of time rather than kind of getting into an upward sink first I need to arrest that decline and then start to grow.

So we are, in the next three years we are kind of building a particular ambition on the market share but it is not very aggressive market share gain. It is our own game in the market because as you would understand, understand it’s a 3 lakh crore industry. To get a 1%, the other guys don’t grow, you need to grow by 3,000 alone, which you know, so we are pragmatic, we’ve taken that practical aspect into the business in a cash flow to kind of arrive at that. Sure. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. Hello, sorry, this is Arun from Aventus Park.

My first question is on. Yeah, okay, the 45,000 crores capex. Can you just broadly give an indication how much of this will go into access, network, transport, core and probably again split it into say maintenance capex and growth capex. And secondly we have not addressed how we are going to pay off spectrum liabilities. If you can give a thoughts on how we are going to fund that payment that will be helpful. Okay so I’ll give you a broad sense on the capex, on the access and the transport and core will be I’ll say in the range of a 70, 30 from a radio to a, to a core at a very ballpark level.

Obviously it will depend, as Jagbir was explaining in a different circle, a different level from a capex or the investment point of view because large part of it will get into the, from the, where it is a 4G there will be less of a transport but if it is a 5G it’s more of a transport. So it, it kind of balances off at a 70:30 ratio. The second question you said on the spectrum, see the way we look at the spectrum dues is over the next three years we have a due of 49,000 crores of spectrum 7,000, 15,000 and 27,000 and when we look at the EBITDA of a three, three, you know, three times from now and then the business efficiencies that is built into that I think the way we are really looking at it is that that takes care of the spectrum including the CapEx that we are talking of.

So that’s the part of the, of the cash flow that we are looking at. So one is my current EBITDA is nine and a half thousand crore. That still takes me to a 28, 29,000 crore. And then there are business efficiency with all these investments that we are talking of and the one that we have already done which kind of takes us to that. And then there are certain non financial thing, the clam part is one of them and then there are certain other non financial. So all put together I think we are in a comfortable position to pay up the spectrum as well as the capex investment through the bank funding obviously that we are looking at.

Right. One, one follow from the previous question that you have built in some market share gain, a reasonable market share gain on a subscriber base. What do you anticipate competition would, how will they react and how are we going to counter that? Because they have a much better free cash flow as compared to you. They have much better resources, much better distribution and operating leverage. So how are we going to counter that reaction from them? The way I would want to approach this question is that yes, they probably have, I’ll not say better network, they have a wider reach network.

I don’t think they have a better distribution from where we are present. We are absolutely similar or better in certain markets otherwise we would not have been in the position. The distribution is a game of acquisition. If you look at my acquisition I am fairly there as far as any competition is concerned. And that talks of the distribution whether it is a direct or the indirect distribution as far as the market is concerned. See in this category like I was telling out of the 3 crore customer that gets acquired roughly around 45% of the customers are actually the customers who are moving from one operator to the other.

And this is month after month, those are the customers which is 45, 47% customers are not considering me today because probably I have an inconsistent capex hence I had not deployed, hence my experience was not there and so on and so forth. And these are the trends that we are seeing seeing over the period of time. Just to give you one data point four or five quarters back, whatever I was acquiring, I was getting 19 to 20% of my acquisition from the competition. Today that number still stands at 43% which means I’m able to attract customers in the market that I’m investing and that will continue because right now I’m not in that consideration set for those set of customers.

And one like you just saw, I have increased my coverage by 100 million. From a population point of view those hundred million guys were not even considering me for the longest period of time. Those are the guys who will now start. It’s not that all of them will come to me but at least they’ll start considering. So I think those are the basics that we are building on and as I said, you know, my distribution is a strength and hence we’ll play on the strength that is is there. Don’t want to comment on what competition will do.

I mean obviously they have a job to do. They will do what they think is right. Thank you. Yeah. Good evening. On the left. Yeah, yeah. Hi, this is Sumangal from Kotak securities. Firstly thanks for hosting this and inviting us. My first question is on the AGR reassessment. One is do we have any broad sense of the timeline when we are engaging with the government? I know It’s a problem 10 years down the line but still number one, number two, are we also pleading with respect to some moratorium on the spectrum liabilities or some deferment there Next on the 45,000 crores capex, if you could share over the next three years what sort of timeline, what sort of ramp up or spends we are looking each year, the, the schedule of that, maybe an annual basis and how much of that is dependent on the 25,000 crores of debt which we are looking to raise and also timeline and just lastly on the 30,000 crores of EBITDA cash, EBITDA target, I believe it is FY29 which we are looking at.

Yeah. So in that assumption, in your calculations can you share what is the assumptions for ARPU and subscribers? The breakup? A broad range also would be fine. Thank you. Okay, so let me recollect the question that you asked. So AGR spectrum subscriber and the breakup breakup of this funding phasing of the funding. Okay, so let me take the AGR first. So I think you know we are very thankful to the government of India as well as the honorable Supreme Court court for taking a very decisive conclusive stance as far as the reassessment is concerned. As I said the reassessment has started.

It’s in full Swing, I’ll say the speed is very good, is very encouraging. We are deeply engaged at different levels because all of these reassessment happens at different places. I would really not want to put a timeline to that or a quantum of what will happen. But we are extremely confident because we know what we are representing. We have all the documents, we have all the proofs of what we are trying to reassess or get reassessed at. So we are extremely hopeful that, you know, whatever the outcome is is going to be good for us.

And as and when it happens, we’ll definitely come back and share about that. As far as any moratorium of spectrum is concerned, I don’t think we ever were representing that. Neither are we doing it today. That’s part of the cash flow that we have baked in and we will be paying through our cash flow on the spectrum. So we are not really talking to the government on the spectrum moratorium or any kind of a relief this. The third question was on the phasing of the capex of 45,000 crore. I mean a very broad level. I’ll say it will be more skewed in the first two years and then kind of the third year because that’s how we will want to phase so that we are able to get the return faster.

So that’s the reason I was very careful when I was saying I’ll deploy my four G17 priority markets in 12 to 24 months. When I said 5G, I said 12 to 30 months. We’ve kind of decided in our mind of how do we want to phase it. And also see, let’s also understand and be practical about. It’s not a question of only the money that is available or not available. It’s also a question of jagvir’s team, the ability to go and execute. I don’t want to kind of get into a situation where we commit something and we are not able to execute.

So we are looking at an extremely aggressive deployment target, I would say which is in the ground. This is also capital and labor intensive work to do. So we are being absolutely conscious of that fact as well. So if have I answered all your question or something is left. Okay, Split of EBITDA growth into ARPU and customers at a very broad level I would say 60, 40, 60 in favor of customers. 40 would be ARPU. ARPU will obviously have a component of an upgrade as well as you know, if and when something happens in the industry on the price.

We have always said that industry needs a price correction. So we’ve kind of built on that. But I think larger focus is on customer and our own customers mix changing. As I keep saying, we have a significant amount of customers who are sitting in 2G which needs to as and when I put the 4G or the 5G those are the guys who are kind of moving into a different category. I need to move there. Second is a category where I have large number of customers who have a data enabled handset but they are on the voice product.

That’s another big category for me to move. And the delta between them as an ARPU is anything between 80 to 100 rupees. So I think those are the immediate things that we are really looking at when we put the investment and start to kind of get the return. Sorry you are wanting for asking a question for clsa. Thank you for the presentation. And you mentioned of the targets that you have, 40% is likely to come from ARPU gain. But if we look at the last few years, the sector has gained from three successive tariff hikes.

The double digit growth, nearly double of this was attributable to the ARPU growth. So in your target to double or triple EBITDA or double digit revenue growth, what if the tariff hikes are delayed? Do you believe 60% subscriber growth can come without a market share gain and this kind of target can be met without tariff hikes? No. So tariff hike as I said and you know it better. In the last six years if you see there have been four structural tariff hikes, okay, Every single tariff hike has ranged from a few 15% to even 100%.

FY21 was 100% tariff when it was a 99 becoming a 199. The last one which is July 24th was 20%. It was 15% as a residual. So it ranges from whatever percentage. So that’s one part of it. And we are not saying that it’s going to happen tomorrow or not. But yeah, we feel that the industry needs to take a call on the correction of the tariff. So that’s one part of it. Second part of it is to say that when I’m looking at a 60% of this coming from the growth on the subscriber, obviously it’s the customers who I need to acquire, which I’m not able to acquire and I can’t really go and put the entire onus onto the ARPU is when I’m saying arpu I’m saying I’m just delinking the upgrade and the price separately because the upgrade is in my hand because that’s the customer that belongs to me and I can upgrade that either from a 2G to a 4G or to a 5G or from a unlimited voice to unlimited data.

Those are two large opportunities that I see because the mix of the base and one of the reason why my ARPU is less is exactly this. Otherwise my ARPU for an unlimited data customer is very similar to what the industry ARPU is. But the mix is skewed towards a non smartphone or a non data customer, which is where it kind of comes down. So as you target to take 5G to hundred cities, do you have a target for the 5G traffic? Because for the leader, 5G is already accounting for 50% of their traffic and only when the traffic upgrades to 5G is there an uplift in ARPU without an explicit tariff hike.

Yeah, so. So see we have, as we speak, we were in 29 city till very recently. We’ve gone to 43 cities in the last one quarter. In the 29th city, which includes Bombay, Delhi, other places, I think we see a pretty significant amount of tariff traffic which is actually accruing on the 5G. Now a lot of these traffic and Jagbir can add on this also accrues onto a 5G because it’s an offload strategy where you need a 4G and a strategy to put a site to take the traffic off a 4G. Had 4G been the only option, you would have put a 4G or a layer.

But since you have a 5G, you’re putting a site of a 5G and you’re offloading a 4G on that. So it might not be a direct correlation of saying that, you know, what’s the traffic on a 5G? And hence all of them kind of gets converted into a revenue for a 5G. So it’s a little bit of a mix bag as far as. So it’s not a straight line transaction to say, you know, if the traffic on the 5G goes up, your revenue is going to go up. Maybe I’ll rephrase my part one of my question.

Considering it takes two to three quarters for tariff hikes to flow through, what if the tariff hikes are delayed? And also this upgrade is a lot more gradual considering that, you know, competition is also investing so aggressively in 5G, is there going to be a, you know, sort of reassessment of the target on double digit revenue growth and 3x of EBITDA in that scenario? I’ll say double digit revenue? We would do that’s the way we are looking at it, 3x EBITDA probably a little marginally here or there is the way I would really look at it.

And one question for Tejas. So there’s a 10% difference between the AGR 877 billion at which it has been frozen versus what’s booked in the accounts for your balance sheet sheet and also the frozen amount is nearly $10 billion. To what extent is the reassessment likely to bring relief? At least a broad range. What kind of relief could one expect? Sure, thanks. I think on the first question on the balance sheet we have got about 80,000 crores and the balancing difference between that 87 and 80 sitting in contingent liability. So it is there in the disclosure already.

So that makes up the 80,000 plus the 7,000. So that comes to the 87,000. To the question of where we think this 80,000 could go down to, I think Abhijit has mentioned too premature for us to say anything. We have the documents, the speed is ongoing but will be premature to say a number at this point of time. Abhijit, you want to add anything? No, thank you. Hello. Yeah, hi, good evening. This is Namit Arora from Ingrowth Capital. Thank you for putting this together and having the entire senior leadership team here. I have a couple of questions.

One is on technology. The industry is prone to a lot of disruption. So if you could give us some color on internal investments for innovation to keep abreast of technology trends and also internal investments to deliver any efficiencies on the cost structure, if that’s possible. So my question is both market facing and internal but just your focus on technology internally. Okay, so when I when you ask of the technology internal it is more to do with automation and AI other than the infrastructure that we are putting as I said in my presentation and Jagabir can add on to that.

The way we really look at the AI intervention is in twofold. One is on the cost reduction and which includes the efficiency and then is on the revenue. In the technology side, when I look at the AI it is primarily on the cost part of it. One of the example that I can cite is, you know, which we have started to kind of pilot as we speak is to look at the AI deployment onto a site to say what’s the kind of power consumption that is happening? And then how do you really on a auto mode self optimize the site of not really throwing that kind of a power because your traffic is not there at that point in time and hence what is the kind of cost reduction that can happen.

I think that’s just one example to say there are many more examples on similar lines. As far as the technology is concerned to put an amount would be difficult at this point in time to say what part of the amount will go. But yes you are right. The way forward on the technology from an internal point of view is absolutely to look at the efficiency and the efficiency on the automation and AI. And we are absolutely committed on that because that’s how. So when I’m talking of an EBITDA I’m also talking of the efficiency that we are building in on the network opex.

Because if you really see the 45,000 crore of capex going really takes my network OPEX in a very different trajectory. So some of these are absolutely baked in as far as you know our EBITDA is concerned. You want to add something on the AI. So I think if I can give you some concrete examples. So one is the cost side using the AI to reduce the cost, improve the productivity. So you can take like all the operation management of the network side as well as the IT side rather than the people doing all kind of job right from the we call it L1 level to L4 level eliminate the people and the cost.

Actually which machine can do it, let machine do it. So we have implemented lot of use cases in the our network operation center in Pune and in IT operations. So we are actually replacing the people with the machines. You do the more accurately, more efficient, less cost. And this is not talk, it’s already implemented and of course it’s like ongoing process. It cannot be like only one time same thing. We are just seeing where we can improve the productivity. Could be in supply chain, could be in finance, could be in shared services. So wherever there’s a benefit of the using AI to reduce the cost we are actually taken the this you know last, last one year, this charter to improve the productivity, reduce the cost, use the AI as much as possible.

Other side towards the revenue announcement side. I think we are working right now on the churn management etc also we are seeing the how AI can analyze the vast of data and can give us the real time outcome. So this is one second is what you know Abjit was saying in terms of innovation your question was see in telco world there’s a big cost on the energy. So we are doing the energy savings whether we do through the self optimizing network or we do the AI LED energy savings. So that is one part. Second part we are also doing actually on the network side to do the interference management to create the more capacity from the same infrastructure and the assets.

Third, we are also doing that when we deploy the network we do the planning in such a way I deploy the investment and balance the investment between the 4G and 5G where we need the smart way of deployment and it’s more of the long term rather than looking for the short term. So I think many ways the AI is helping us and I’m sure helping industry but we are adopting AI very aggressively to just see wherever we can optimize the cost. That is the first priority for us. That’s very helpful, thank you. I just have two quick questions for Abhijit.

One is on internal morale, you know, people morale and generally within the organization attrition churn of people and your ability to attract top quality talent. And secondly, if you could just spend a couple of minutes on branding and marketing because several participants before also talked of market share gains. If you are putting some renewed focus on marketing and branding etc. Yes, you picked up on the favorite thing from mine which is the employee. And that’s the reason we say that employee first and customer always and and there’s a live event happening. In fact we have extended this link to all the employees and many of them would be actually watching us live.

I think the way it starts for us is being authentic and being transparent and we genuinely believe in it. We don’t only Talk of the 3 CTO which is the culture, the career and the, you know, and the capability. We genuinely put in a lot of effort and Guru can talk about it a little bit on saying because you know, this industry is really changing and changing very fast, especially in the case of enterprise. I think the capability investment of our employees is extremely important for them to keep pace with what’s really happening in this industry.

Otherwise your customers will know more than what you know and that’s not a really great place to go be in. So that’s one of the focus area and I think from an employee morale point of view, the way, you know, we have held our team together with one of the lowest attrition, you know, I would say in the industry for the long period of time making sure that every information reaches them directly. Like this one. I do a something called a focus of the month. I’ve been doing it for the last 44 months, every month, month on month where we talk of exactly what is happening in our lives so that they know and they hear from me rather than from anybody else.

So that’s how we are building that confidence. And I’m absolutely confident of our employees of where they stand and what they need to do. And also, not only that, I mean, I’m also cognizant of the fact that the culture of ownership and performance need to be driven at this point of time. Where we stand today, we need entrepreneurs. We need ownership in the employee fraternity rather than just being an employee. And that’s how we drive that agenda very, very rigorously. You want to add something on employee. Thank you for asking that question. Let me give you some data points which kind of will be an evidence of the question that you asked.

Let’s take the ultimate measure of employee morale. Attrition. FY24, we were 16.8. FY25, we were 16.5 lower than competition. YTD. FY26, we are 14.2. So actually, good news travels and everybody experiences it in a certain way. And that is directly translating into a fall in attrition or increase in retention. If I cut this in a slightly different way, the average tenure of the the top band in the company is 12 years, which means top leadership has stuck around. The average tenure of the band right next to it is also about 11.8, 11.9, which kind of indirectly tells you that people who are movers and shakers really are quite embedded and quite invested in the success and future of the organization.

The third dimension at which I would like to talk about is where does morale come from? One is, of course, it comes from a rosy view of the future, but it also comes from their experience of how much the organization is investing in them. And if, let’s say, the number of learning hours is any barometer of how much investment we make, despite what we have gone through, it’s up by about 30% in the last two years. It’s up by about 45% over the last two years. So I think all in all, whichever way you cut your question, the real indicators are quite healthy and becoming even stronger with time.

Thank you. And Abhijit, if you could just spend one minute on my last question, which was on branding and marketing. Any efforts on that? Sorry, I. Branding and marketing. Any enhanced efforts? Branding and marketing. I think Avnish is here, but as I said, we have a brand which is is really a love brand. It’s amalgamation of two real love brand earlier which is now converged into V. We feel that the story is incomplete. And let me confess that that we need to do a little bit of work there. And that’s the reason I Kind of left it incomplete because I want a right time to unveil some of that.

So there’s some work happening. As I said, watch for the space and we’ll come back on what we are going to do do. But we are absolutely cognizant of the fact that we need to have a very compelling narrative, which I’m not talking of it right now, but we know exactly what we are going. Want to add something or. No, I think two parts to this. One is I think we do recognize the fact that we need to drive revaluation as far as the brand is concerned. Right. If you’re looking to bring in incremental consumers, we will need to do that.

And I think as the market matures, brands do tend to get commoditized and I think that opens up an opportunity from our standpoint to drive ourselves from a differentiation point of view and therefore drive revaluation. So without letting on more, I think just watch this space, we will get a lot more salient, we will increase our share of voice and you should be hearing a lot more from us in the coming months. Sorry, Madhu. Yeah. Thank you very much everyone and all the best. Thank you. Dieting. Thank you. Thank you. First of all since sincere thanks from all of us for all of you being present here and doing this meeting after a long gap.

So I have, you know, three parts. One is the overall mathematics. If I look 49000 crore rupees of a spectrum payment over the next three years, 45000 crore rupees of capex, that’s 94000 crores. I’m assuming some payable and contingent liability will be there of the past to say roughly 1 lakh crore rupees to be invested over next three years. So. And you said you will take 35000 crore rupees of debt. 25 funded 10 months. Yeah. So I am assuming that 10,000 unfunded will of 35,000. So 65,000 crore rupees essentially will come from internal accruals over the next three years.

Primarily, yes. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And just taking cue from Dipti’s point, if there is a shortfall, let’s say for whatever reason, business is business, if there is a shortfall in EBITDA number then will it be a call on the promoters for additional equity or it will be a call on shareholders? Okay, I, I did not introduce the promoters sitting here in the room and Sushil, I can possibly address this. Yes, I’ll. Sushil, do you want to come here? Because then probably. So. Thanks, Madhu. And I think this is a very, very relevant question. I think.

Couple of points you have to kind of keep in mind. One, as a promoter, we have stood by this company all throughout, otherwise you would not be standing in front of you. Brilliantly handled. This will be a case study in Harvard. No, absolutely. And I did mention to many people that this company would be a case study at Howard. I would also say that Mr. Birla, particularly especially in this company, he’s the largest investor across the group, what he has done for this company. So I think you have to see this question in a context, context.

He has always remained positive and he has invested when there was a need. And tomorrow, theoretically, if there is a need, I don’t think promoters will run away and will not take care of the company. So I think you have to see this question in a slightly different context. And if there is a need for equity, the promoters will come before it goes to the larger shareholders some other way. As you know that, that we have invested 27,000 crores in last few years. So that stands, that itself gives a message that if there is a need, I think promoters always have remained confident, they’ve invested and they would make sure that if there is a need, they support that company.

And apart from this 49,000 crore spectrum which is being paid out, how much more liability is left after this? So one more point actually, as you know, the equity is always a costliest form of reserve. Absolutely. So I think, you know, 100% at this price it is very, very expensive. So I think we will keep that in mind actually. So, so just to answer your question, so as we speak, as I said that we have cleared all the debt, the debt, the bank debt that is there is under 1000 crore now. Okay. And so there’s no other liability at all.

Rather, on the contrary, there is some money that we can recover. On the clam that I talked of and on some of the income tax, I was talking about spectrum liability. There’s no other spectrum. This is, this is the 49,000 is the total. Is the total, yeah. 7,000, 15,000 and 27,000. So that makes it. Sorry for this ignorant question. Are we paying interest on this spectrum or this is a total on time? Yeah. So this is a total payment, including the interest? Yes, yes, including the interest. Right, yeah. And my last question is, of course, you know, both the competitors are very, very strong in your understanding.

What are you calculating their response to be to this aggressive comeback of Vi I think they should welcome us with open arms. They have been having a duopoly. We are a very formidable, strong promoter backed organization with extremely good, excellent execution capability which was only not able to perform because of the AGR overhang. I think once that part is behind us, which is behind us. I think it’s a three player market. India is a large market. I don’t see that, you know, they should be worried from that point of view. But yeah, but we are absolutely in the market to give them a tough competition.

Thank you. Appreciate it and thank you once again. Thank you so much. Hi Amarunahar. You alluded to about 45% if the number is correct of the people who are churning between one operator to another almost regularly. You kind of suggested that it is a pattern. Can you throw some light as to why this is happening? Because your whole strategy on acquiring more customers seems to be. This seems to be a foundational part to it. Okay, no, so let me break that into two parts. So their number is right. So out of the total number that is acquired in an industry In a month, 45% of them move into two operators.

Till now they were primarily moving between the two operators because you know, some part of the market we were not present in and that’s the market that we definitely want to participate in. The reason why they move, multiple reasons. Could be challenge on the network, could be challenge on the service, could be challenge on the, you know, on the offering that they are getting. Because you know, these are the markets. So we call them a category which is a rotational churn. Customers who are more value seekers and kind of move every month. And that’s a large part of the segment.

But our strategy is not only dependent on the guys who are moving, you know, we are also looking at a category which is other than this. Like I said, you know, we are currently at a 43% at best. I’ll go to a 50% which is an increase of a 7,8% on that. But the 50% of the market which is new in the category is also what we are looking at. So we are not over indexed as far as only this category of a customer customer is concerned. But yes, that’s a market reality as well. That that’s the kind of customer that is rotating, you know, within the operators.

Yeah, yeah. Kunal from BNP Pariba. So again coming back to the EBITDA question, so like as you look to triple the EBITDA over the next three years, what’s the tariff hike which you think is required to really get there and what’s, what do you think will be the industry subscriber growth over the next two, three years? And on the cost side, like what’s the potential, what’s the plan for the weaker circles? Is there a potential to. Or would you look to exit considering that those will be loss making circles? And on churn the 4% monthly churn, where do you think it stabilizes? Again, it’s a big cost which you are incurring.

Yeah. Okay, so first question you asked was on the ebitda, it’s any pricing intervention we believe is a call of a leader, not a call of a challenger. We have always maintained that the industry needs a price repair. Everybody says that we’ll wait for the leaders to take a call on that and then we will evaluate what do we want to do with that. So that’s on the pricing. I’m not very sure you know what quantum of price will increase or not increase. So that’s on the pricing part of it. The second question was on subscribers.

I mean industry subscribers are. We are not planning any circle to be shut down at all. Rather we are wanting it to strengthen them for the simple reason that the customers who are going in from a 17 market to those market, they should be able to experience the similar network experience and service experience. Because we have seen over the period of time that you know, if you do not have your network availability, we can’t go and cover everywhere. But at least the places that I have a 2G site which is pretty decent amount of coverage, at least we make them a 4G as well as we cover all the areas which is of public interest, which is a station, airport, religious places, public interest places so that we are present in that area.

So we are not having any plans to exit as far as the cost is concerned. We have our own plans on large cost on this is a network cost. And when we look at the ebitda, we also look at an overall EBITDA from a country point of view. Not really while we look at a circle level as well. But I think from a strategic point of view we need to have a little holistic view as far as the EBITDA is concerned. And also if you can, sorry, also if you can comment on your plans for enterprise as well as maybe postpaid.

How do you see postpaid? I mean have you been losing customers there? Do you think you can have a stronger pitch towards them now? And also fwa, what’s the plan? I mean like say other players who invested aggressively there. What’s your strategy there. So I think postpaid, let me pick up postpaid and then Arvind, I’ll request you to add on the enterprise part of it. Postpaid part is I’ll say is a is a turnaround business for us. Over the last two years we have really seen a significant amount of turnaround as far as the postpaid business is concerned.

One because we have opened the touchpoint the postpaid customer still is a discerning customer who needs a little touch and a fee. If you saw the slides we have in the country 2,641 exclusive stores, stores in 664 cities. We have deployed 370 odd stores in the last probably two quarters. So I think there’s a fair amount of work happening as far as the touch points are concerned. We are also available digitally and we have an unparalleled value proposition whether it is in shape and form of family or in shape and form of the red X that we offer where there are unique benefits that we offer.

And as I said you know that business is absolutely in the positive territory. We don’t see whether it is on the revenue, whether it is on the on the net ads, on the enterprise. I’ll request Arvind to kind of add a flavor. It’s been a critical part of our journey and we are working pretty diligently on that. Thank you. So on enterprise basically as Abhijit mentioned earlier we operate across customer segments whether it’s the large hyperscalers, large banks to even the digital startups. It’s a business of a portfolio of sub businesses whether it is core connectivity.

Some segments are mid single digit growth categories whereas some segments are very high 20% plus categories and we are operating across all segments so we have a very clear focus on how do we make ourselves more relevant and I think some of the last two years of quarterly earnings call also we’ve given updates on whether as an example being the innovator in launching the rich business messaging in partnership with Google in India we were the first to have launched that whether creating new products in terms of fixed line with hybrid SD WAN with world class partners like Fortinet and Cisco.

So how do we modernize our product portfolio and we’ve had a rich history and DNA of enterprise relationship building. We have dedicated customer account directors with deep experience. So a mix of operating across customer segments, modernizing our product portfolio and increasing our TAM in some of the higher growth what we call emerging business or next gen services. These are Three pillars on which we have actually seen very strong momentum already in the enterprise business over the last four, five quarters and of course the next two or three quarters we have very strong clear plans to take it forward.

Yeah. Sanjay Sherman. Yes. So I think, I think for all this plan to come around, I think revenue is the key point. So just wanted to understand on the four key factors of the revenue, how do you think each of the factor will play out over next three years? First is subscriber industry is growing at two and a half percent. We have been declining. Now the ambition is to grow faster than the industry for the revenue to be achieved. The second is premiumization, 2G to 4G, 4G to 5G, how it translates into revenue. Now again we have seen historically the subscriber when they were upgrading for 2G to 4G a lot of them have moved out of the network in the want of a better quality customer.

How are we going to stop that? Feed that and probably grow faster than the subscriber growth. That’s number two. Number three is terrify. Now if we go go historically the translation of tariff hike into revenue has been pretty weak for us, right? Negative to at best case 20 25%. Now how are we changing that? How are we working on translating the revenue, sorry tarifike to revenue? That’s the third part and fourth part obviously enterprise, what kind of contribution you see and how that it’s all work out to reaching that 17, 18% kind of a revenue CAGR.

If you can touch on all these four point probably that will give us more clarity in terms of how to think about the revenue for vi. Okay, so I’ll take the, the subs question and the tariff question and then premiumization I’ll request Avnish to answer and then Arvind can talk on the enterprise part. See when we look at the subs, obviously you know, large part of our action is very clearly from coming from a fact of the place that we are investing and we’ll invest. And yes, the answer is that we need to grow faster than the industry and that’s what the aim is.

Second point is, let’s also understand when you say 2% of the industry growth from a customer’s point of view is another challenge of the industry where the two players were investing. But since we were losing subscribers, the entire growth for them from the subs came from us. And that’s the job that we are kind of going to do. On expanding to the question that thar was asking here on saying that, you know, how do I really participate in the area which is the MNP area as well as the outside area. So yes, the answer is that we are looking at an aggressive growth as far as the customers are concerned.

On the second question on the price, I think if you cut that price over the last four or six years, the four times the price has changed every single time the ARPU gain that we have got is very similar to what other guys have got. And every time we have got a customer customer loss which is far significant which effectively takes my revenue down. And that’s the point I was making that you know, we probably did the price up without the network experience being there. After that price we have already invested 16,000 crore as and when the price up happens, you know there will be a significant amount of capex of 45,000 crore which would have gone the 5G would have come the capacity of seen 117,000 broadband sites we’ve added all of this actually adds to the experience and hence there is no reason if the other two operators are adding onto the ARPU and not really losing subscriber, effectively giving the return on the revenue, there’s no reason for me to then kind of lose on the subscriber.

And hence we are very pragmatic and that’s the reason I said that as and when the price change happens, we’ll evaluate and see where do we need to make that effective. You want to add something on the premiumization. So I think two or three things. One is, I think you need to recognize even today there’s a pretty significant gap between our ARPU and our competitor arpu. And while I’m not taking names, I hope you understand the competitor I’m alluding to. So eventually as the mix changes, we fundamentally have a fairly large trajectory available to us in terms of headroom as far as the ARPU growth is concerned.

Whether it is in terms of today we have a, like Kabjit’s been saying, a significant proportion of let’s say 2G customers which are low ARPU customers. We also have a larger proportion of what are called second SIM customers. Right. Eventually at the end of the day, as the network experience consolidates, a lot of that second SIM starts converting into the primary sim. So while subscriber growth is going to be important and we are obviously like he spoke about the fact that there are, as far as our mix is concerned, 60% is built on subscriber, the 40% and I think the lady asked the question saying what happens if that mix doesn’t translate? We fundamentally believe There is enough and more headroom and opportunity available in terms of premiumization to be able to upscale the arpu, which is what we’ve been doing despite having no price repair in the last four quarters.

I think, like he said, the ability to be able to hold on consumers with price increase, we obviously feel a lot more confident now given the fact that the network repair is happening. We’re consolidating the experience. So therefore we will be able to build a lot of that price increase into our revenue growth as we move forward. I think postpaid is fundamentally a very, very strong story for us. We’re coming back very, very strongly as far as postpaid is concerned. I think what we need to recognize for us postpaid is largely a top 20 city story where fundamentally the experience, both in terms of the retail experience, in terms of the front facing, consumer facing assets that we offer, as well as the experience where we’re starting to build out the 5G network, we’re starting to see pretty significant gains as far as premiumization is concerned.

And therefore the ARPU mix also with a lot of the propositions that we’ve introduced, whether it’s the superhero, nonstop hero, we’re seeing a large proportion of our base starting to move to these propositions where we’re getting pretty significant ARPU uptake. So I think we’re pretty confident as we move in the journey, the premiumization is here to, to stay and that will continue to build our ARPU as we move forward because there is enough and more headroom relative to where we stand vis a vis our competitors in the market today. Yeah, and just to add a bit on the enterprise side, I think the way we look at it fundamentally there is, we have to protect and grow the core, which is slightly more steady, predictable, strong margin, accredit part of our cash flow and then start aggressively moving into increased TAM and other value pools.

As an example, the IoT space and the whole smart meter digital India vision, we are talking of almost a TAM of 200 to 220 million households which will get into this bandwagon in the next three, four years. We have publicly announced already partnerships and MOUs that we have in our order book of 12 million. And we are actively in a situation where possibly in the next two or three months we will be able to announce figures even, you know, higher than that. So that is the kind of TAM increase from other, you know, industry pools that will happen from the new businesses.

So both the core and the new areas of business have the headway and the space for us to grow meaningfully in terms of a time check. If you can just take the last question for the day. Good evening, this is Aditya Suresh from Macquarie. I’m right here in the back. Just two questions. So first is in terms of just going back to your slides, you showed some stuff on Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh. Can you disaggregate that impact value versus volume Some of the gains you saw as you invested in those markets. So two parts. If you notice that in Maharashtra it is a gain on both the value and the volume and that’s where I said that we have added or started to add customers quarter two onwards and obviously there is an impact on the above upgrade that Avnish was explaining.

Whereas in case of UP we have still not got into the positive territory where we have arrested the decline that was happening. So there it is more a value game where we have been able to upgrade more customers, not really add customers to get that game. That’s a simple way of really understanding the UP and Maharashtra. And this will be very different for different places depending upon the place and stage of life that the circulation. And the second clarification was in terms of your subscriber aspirations, is there any inorganic consolidation impact to think about whether it be BSNL or any of the other government entities or is it all organic Vodafone idea? No, no, it’s all organic.

There’s no consolidation or if you are hinting towards any kind of a merger or any kind of thing. No, it’s all organic. Going into the market, sweating it out, executing and getting the business out of the network that we put. And as you kind of execute this in three years time, do you have any target of what this could mean for your net debt to EBITDA on an overall consolidated basis? Net add to ebitda net debt debt, you want to take that? I think net debt will be. I actually pointed out, I think partly covered it.

So actually if you look at an external debt today is fairly low with the 25,000 crores that spoke about. Even at today’s ratio we are at 1.1-2.5 and as we grow our EBITDA that will be substantially lower than that. So we are looking at that range as we speak. Even if we include the non funded, we added 1 is to 3.5 at today’s EBITDA which again should grow as we look at the ambition in the future. Would you include Spectrum and AGR liabilities as well? Because these are effectively interest bearing. I think the way to look at Spectrum would be to look at whether we are able to fulfill from a cash flow point of view.

And I think that Abhijit has given confidence and the reason in a way not to look at debt is the Spectrum is over a significant 20 year period. This installment is due to 2024. So I think as I look at net debt to EBITDA to generate revenue and grow for the next two, three years, I’ll focus on external debt while not losing the IO and ability to pay the Spectrum which we shared again earlier as well. Thank you. All the best. Thank you. Okay, I think there’s the last question here and then we wrap up.

Yeah. And we are any which we’re here so we can, we can have the conversations going on. Yeah, sorry, we can’t hear you, Mike. The revenue double digit revenue growth target. You know the competitor has a 5G SA network competitor has 20% lower tariff. So while I agree with the team on the postpaid side of you know, Vodafone being able to attract more postpaid subscribers but how would larger subscriber gains come through? Because a peer does have 20% lower tariffs on 5G. Sorry, I don’t think they have a 20% lower tariff now. I mean there’s a broad range of them.

Yeah. Now if you see the entry level price has changed for them as well. So I don’t think that that holds. Also one of the competition has an essay, the other has an nsa. Yeah, but that competition has gained a lot more postpaid subscribers even from Vodafone ideas. So the point, the point is larger subscriber gains, would it be possible with one peer having lower tariffs and one peer being quite aggressive at ground on attracting postpaid. And the second part to this is if the peers don’t increase rates, would Vodafone idea be willing to take tariff hikes? So that I think the second part of the question I answered saying that the, the tariff increase in a manner is a call of a leader, not really a challenger at this point in time.

So you know, that’s I think 2019 Vodafone idea took the tariff hike lead. If I recall correct, 2019 was right after the merger, which was probably we were the largest player after the merger. So I don’t think we are looking at a tariff hike on our own. It depends on. And the last question from me on this whole spectrum, repayment is taken care of for three years but thereafter there’s still a very large liability. And if government does convert, depending on the price they could end up being 80% or more. So how do promoters see this pattern where they go up from 49 to maybe above 80 and yet we are in a point where, where maybe even spectrum renewals will be coming up, you know.

Yeah, hello. No, this was a. I think the related question. So it this I asked before and sorry for this repeating again. So what I heard was the total spectrum payment due. Yeah. As of now is only 49000 crores for the next three years. Next three years. Yeah. So that’s what I asked. What is the remaining after three years how much is more remaining spectrum payment. Okay then I mean that every year it is different for the next three. After the FY29 is another 77. 27 for another two years then it starts coming down because depending upon how the spectrum holding pattern is overall it’s 120,000 over the next 20 years.

The 1 lakh 20,000 crore minus 50,000 crore for the next three years till for 2044, whatever. So that the total repayment after we pay this 50,000 crore will be roughly 70,000 crores to be paid over the next 16 years. Right? Not 16 years, 20 years but three years is passed by now I’m assuming. Yeah. From 29. Yeah. Yeah. From 29 to 16. Yeah. 24. Yeah. Thank you. And maybe I just want to clarify that government I don’t think will increase their ownership beyond 49%. So I don’t think we should assume that they’ll go 80% or 75%.

I think what they have cabinet earlier when they had approved this 49% there is a clause which suggests that in case company raises more equity capital and government drops from 49 to whatever percentage depending on what company has raised, they reserve a right for further converting obligations into equity up to 49%. So that’s the way you should read. Sorry. Just on this related thing, does it include the interest payment? Yeah, this is inbuilt. Yeah. So there is no over and above interest rate. No, no, no, absolutely. So total liability is one 20,000 crores is spread over the next 20 years.

That’s right. Over the next three years 49,000 crore to be paid. Yes. And for the remaining next 16 years another 70,000 crore rupees to be paid provided we don’t renew some of the spectrum which will come. That is a different issue. Yeah, absolutely correct. Understanding. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Okay, I think we are all here. We’ll kind of meet all of you one on one. Thank you all for coming. In and. And spending time. It means a lot to us, I think. You know, we’ve kind of just come out of the phase of the largest overhang, and we as a team are kind of standing here committing ourselves to the target that we have taken.

Thank you all for joining in, and we’ll join you. Thank you, Sam.