Note: This is a preliminary transcript and may contain inaccuracies. It will be updated with a final, fully-reviewed version soon.
Vodafone Idea Limited (NSE: IDEA) Q4 2026 Earnings Call dated May. 18, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Abhijit Kishore — Chief Executive Officer
Analysts:
Vivekanand Subaraman — Analyst
Sanjesh Jain — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Gaurav Malhotra — Analyst
Ritvik Agrawal — Analyst
Balaji Subramanian — Analyst
Presentation:
Abhijit Kishore — Chief Executive Officer
Subscriber base to 192.8 million customers vis a vis last quarter, a first since the merger. More importantly, we have registered improvement in subscriber numbers for the first time post merger in the month of February which has continued into March as well. Our revenue for quarter four FY26 was rupees 11,332 crores, a 2.9% growth on a Y. On Y basis, revenue for the full year grew by 3% to rupees 44,873 crores in FY26 from rupees 43,571 crores in FY25. The cash EBITDA for FY26 was rupees 9,217 crores versus 9,198 crores in FY25.
We also saw a healthy expansion of our customer ARPU from 175 in quarter four FY25 to rupees 190 in quarter four FY26, a growth of 8.3% year on year. The customer ARPU has now been increasing for the 19 consecutive quarters. The customer ARPU expansion over the last year has been driven primarily by premiumization which is evident from our improving 4G 5G subscriber mix which stood at 66.9% in quarter 4 FY26 up from 63.8% in quarter 4 FY25. We closed the quarter with 128.9 million 4G 5G subscribers, up from 126.4 million in quarter 4 FY25.
Our data usage in quarter 4 FY26 has also increased year on year by over 30% to 83 petabyte per day from 63.8 petabyte per day in quarter 4 FY25. We also added over 17,300 new unique broadband towers this year. Our focused execution has also translated into better customer engagement as reflected in the data usage. The average Data usage by a 5G and a 4G subscriber improved 27.2% year on year to 20.2 GB in quarter 4 FY26. Moving on. First let me update you on our network initiatives. Over the last six quarters.
We have deployed over 16,000 crores and added approximately 30,000 unique broadband towers and expanded capacity by adding over 1 26,000 new broadband layers. We also expanded 4G capacity by over 27% and improved our 4G population coverage over 86% on pan India basis to deliver superior connectivity and experience to our customers. We always maintain that consistent and right investment has been key in stemming our subscriber losses and we are now witnessing tangible outcomes as 4G coverage and and 5G presence deepens across circles on 5G we have made substantial strides since the launch of our 5G services in Mumbai in March 25th.
We have expanded our 5G footprint significantly and I’m pleased to share that our 5G services are now live in over 80 cities across all our 17 circles where we have 5G spectrum. This expansion underscores our commitment to delivering a superior network experience to our customers. Next are differentiated product offerings and market initiatives. VEE has always been a brand known for creating differentiation and we intend to sharpen this differentiation further across consumer and enterprise offerings.
Our nonstop HERO proposition, which offers unlimited data to our subscribers, continues to witness great traction and has been recording a sequential growth of over 25% for the last three quarters. In the postpay segment, we continue to register sequential positive Net adds for eight consecutive quarters. Our Easy plus offering designed specifically to cater to the needs of enterprise postpaid customers. We expanded the portfolio with addition of personal loans to its offering. We upgraded our V app offering and also supercharged it with AI capabilities.
We launched an AI powered Recharge assistant which optimizes value based selection of recharge plan for our users. Under the We Protect umbrella. We categorize over 2 billion calls and SMSes as suspected spam this quarter. Additionally, we are currently blocking nearly 250,000 domains as spam to secure our network. The V brand continues to garner strong awareness and brand affinity across all customer segment in the country. We continue to make extensive progress on the marketing front by communicating key differentiators to customers, entering into alliances and introducing various innovative products and services.
This quarter we also entered into strategic partnership with Chennai Superking as their official communications partner, giving us strong salience during this ipl. The Number Rakshak campaign at Kumbh was recognized at London International Award and the CLIO Awards this quarter. Moving on to our enterprise business on the enterprise side during the quarter, enterprise offerings across connectivity, cloud, IoT, business, communication, mobility and cybersecurity demonstrated strong momentum with increasing enterprise adoption across key sectors including bfsi, manufacturing, utilities, logistics and government.
We are also developing the dedicated enterprise corridor by strengthening the fixed line capabilities with the addition of 1.3 terabyte network capacity across data centers, enhancing scalability, resilience and high speed connectivity for enterprise customers. We earned multiple prestigious recognition during including Innovative Connectivity Solution of the Year at the Asian Telecom Awards 2026 for our CCAAS offering and the Aegis Graham Bell Award for innovation in IoT. The telecom industry is well positioned for growth as need for connectivity is driven by a fast growing economy, a growing and young population, rising technology adoption across all age groups, lower rural tele density and increasing smartphone penetration.
Collectively, these improving trends and developments give us increasing confidence in our ability to participate in the industry’s growth story. Before I hand over to Tejas, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the people behind these results. As I stated earlier, we are guided by a simple belief of employees first customer always experience is everything. The progress we have made this year on our network, customer retention and execution has been delivered by a team that has shown remarkable commitment through a challenging period.
Our employees have stayed focused, working relentlessly to rebuild the brand by delivering differentiated services and providing innovative offerings. These trends across KPIs are a clear reflection that our strategic initiative and employee efforts are translating into tangible improvement. With that, I’ll hand over the call to Tejas, our CFO for the financial commentary. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you Abhijit. Good afternoon everyone. We continue to impress witness improving trends across key financial metrics. Let me start with the revenue. Revenue for the quarter was at 11,332 crores registering a year on year growth of 2.9%. At a full year growth this translates to 3% at a revenue of 44,873 crores sequentially quarter on quarter. On an EDB basis it also grew 2.3%. This quarter actually is the highest average daily revenue in the last six years coming to EBITDA. EBITDA for the quarter was 4,889 crore improving 4.9% versus the same quarter last year.
This actually translated into an EBITDA margin improvement of 80 basis points to 43.1%. The EBITDA for the full year also grew by 4.8% at rupees nineteen thousand three crores. The cash EBITDA for quarter four also improved by 4.8% to 2,432 crores versus the same quarter last year. The cash EBITDA for this year for this full year ended at 9,217 crore. It showed only a marginal improvement and this is due to the 17,300 and 300 sites rollout which actually shows our focus on overall cost management.
Investment for the quarter was at rupees 2,294 crores and closing the full year at 8,742 crores for investment. Also pleased to share that our bank debt has further reduced to only 726 crores as at March 31 from 2,326 crores from the March of last year a reduction of 1600 crores. The free cash bank balance stood at 3,715 crores as of March 31, 2026. Let me briefly explain the accounting impact of the AGR settlement on the AGR matter. The Company received a communication from DoT on April 30 stating that the committee formed for the purpose of reassessment has finalized the AGR dues at Rupees 64,046 crores for the year 20062007 to 2018 2019.
The payments against these AGR dues of 64,046 will be made as first a minimum of 100 crores annually from from March 32 to March 35 and subsequently Rupees 10,608 crores annually for the next six years I.e. From March 36 to March 41. In addition, the Company also has to pay Spectrum user charges amounting to rupees 609 crores with interest in respect of FY17.18 and FY18 19 in six annual installments of rupees 124 crores between March 26 and March 2030 1st and hence the company has already paid 124 crores as of March 2026.
Consequently, in accordance with the applicable accounting standards, the financial liability of Rupees 80,502 crores as at 31st of December 2025 was derecognized and a revised financial liability of Rupees 24,880 crores was recognized which is the present value of the reduced liability and the futures payments. As I stated above, the Resulting difference of rupees 55,622 crores along with net impact of other related provisions has been credited to the PNL as an exceptional item in the quarter and the full year financials ended March 31, 2026.
With this one time benefit in exceptional items, we recorded a net profit of Rupees 51,970 crores in Q4FY26 and a net profit of Rupees 34,552 crores for the full year of FY26. To summarize, this quarter reflects the continued improvement in our operational and financial performance in line with our stated strategy and Ambition, we continue to make progress including securing funding for future CapEx and the capital infusion from the promoters is a significant step in that direction. With that, I hand over the call back to Yashashree.
Thank you.
Vivekanand Subaraman — Analyst
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Participants connected on the audio may please press star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We’ll take our first question from the line of Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Questions and Answers:
Sanjesh Jain
Yeah, good afternoon, thanks for taking my call. Sorry, taking my questions, couple of them. First, on the arpu, if I adjust that days, it appears that ARPU has grown over 3.2% sequentially. What is driving this strong growth? Because premiumization still underwhelming. We have added only 0.4 million customers on 4G and 5G. So what is driving such a sharp ARPU improvement? Is this better engagement with the customer? Can you help us understand and how much more is left in these efforts to drive organic ARPU growth for us?
Abhijit Kishore
Thanks Sanjesh. So I’ll answer that in two parts. One, obviously, as you rightly said, and which is also reflected in the data consumption that you saw, which has grown over 30% which clearly reflects that the customers are now experiencing a very different network across the country. Second, I think the increase that we see in our unlimited data customers and the proposition, which is a differentiated proposition that we launched last year, which is a non stop hero, which really gives the customer the freedom of using unlimited data 24, 24 hours, that really is pushing.
And as I said that that quarter on quarter we see a significant increase of almost 25% on the non stop Hero. So both of these investment of network, addition of sites, increase in capacity, increase in population, we’ve also added roughly around 48 million more population to RTT, you know, which was not being able to experience our services. So all of that put together, you know, is the reflection in the arpu, which is a very, very strong ARPU growth and we intend to keep this growth on.
Sanjesh Jain
Got it, got it. So how much more do you think this is possible? Because I can see we are at a significant discount on an ARPU versus the peers. So is there a significant gap which, which we can bridge through these efforts?
Abhijit Kishore
So two parts, Sanjesh. One is obviously we are looking at these differentiated offering to you know, bridge some part of the gap, but I don’t think it the gap will be bridged only with this. The way to understand this is the mix of the customers that we have. You know, as I said, you know, we have almost 67% of our customers now on the smartphone with 33% of them being on a feature phone. And I think that’s a big lever for us to push and that opportunity is available with us to upgrade our customers.
So that’s one second. When we look at our smartphone base and the split between the customers who are still not using data with us though they are using smartphone on our network, that’s the second opportunity that we see. And the third opportunity is there are a lot of customers are still using a data quota which is a 1.5 GB a day or a 2GB a day for them to move into a truly unlimited nonstop data. So I think all of these things put together, we still see a large amount of opportunity that we have in the ARPU upgrade.
Sanjesh Jain
My second question is on the subscriber we have almost reached to a flattish versus a decline historically. Can you help us understand how are we behaving in the areas or in the locations where we have added the network versus the areas we have not added the network to? Just get a sense what does it really mean in terms of Capex and that translating into a subscriber growth?
Abhijit Kishore
Yeah Sanjesh. So if you see our deployment of 16,000 crore over the last six quarters that I spoke of, that obviously has gone into a graded manner in different circles depending upon the number of customers that we had in a circle. And I’ll just pick up one circle, for example, say for example Maharashtra. And this is one example. So we have circles like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kerala, upg, some of these circles where we have invested a little more than the other circle. Depending upon the customer availability that we had and the gap that we had, we see a very significant change in the customer in three things actually.
One, customer acquisition, second, the quality of customer being acquired and the third is on the base retention. So we clearly see a difference in the circles and in the areas within those circles where we have been able to add more layers providing better experience, better capacity and better coverage to the customers.
Sanjesh Jain
So any number you want to put, where we have put the network, how much we have grown just to understand the intensity of benefit we can get,
Abhijit Kishore
I mean I’ll say that the numbers are significantly better. We don’t share the numbers circle wise, but we can tell you that these circles That I name those places we have kind of significantly grown better Also one of the things that we are also seeing which is helping both upgrading the customers as well as subscriber addition is the number of 5G cities that we have been able to launch over the last one year which is upwards of 80 now. So we can’t share the numbers but you can pretty much safely assume that these are some of the circles that I named there.
The differential is pretty significant as compared to other. Most of the circles have grown but these circles have grown differentially over the other circles.
Sanjesh Jain
Got it very clear. My next set of question is more like on the OPEX and the fundraise network operating cost declined sequentially While we continue to add this site, what’s driving the efficiency in the network OPEX number two on the fundraise, where are we in terms of that fundraise that we are anticipating to come how soon? Because that will be key enabler in FY27 in terms of the execution of our plan. And one related question on the shareholding pattern now I think both the promoter probably post CLM adjustment for Vodafone and Aditya Birla Group taking the preferential issue now reaches probably first time an equal shareholding in the Vodafone and idea.
Will that change anything in terms of the board structure or the agreement between the promoters?
Abhijit Kishore
Okay, so three questions you’ve asked. One is on the OPEX network OPEX which I’ll let Tejas answer but before that I’ll give you an answer on the debt raise and the second was on the promoter shareholding pattern. So on the debt raise as you would know we maintain our capex over the next three years for 45,000 crores. We are looking at a funded of a 25,000 crore and a non funded of a 10,000 crore facility. We are deeply engaged as we have said it’s a SBI led consortium which is looking into it which forms part of the ESU banks, the private banks as well as the foreign banks and we are very confident of closing that very fast.
Don’t want to put a timeline as you would imagine some of these things unless until it’s kind of closed we would not want to share that. So that’s on the debt. But we are, yes, we are very confident that our capex intensity of what we have spent in the last quarter or the last year is only going to intensify towards the total of 45,000 crore that we have made for ourselves over the next three years. As far as the shareholding pattern is concerned as you know, these are the clamp settlement current shareholding pattern is 16.07% for Vodafone Plc and 9.57 for the ABG Group that post the changes on the warrants on the preferential allotment as well as the clam will stand differently but that is only after the equity is completely converted.
So that’s where we stand right now. The last part on the question question that you said that will there be any change? I don’t think there is any change that we are looking at in the board structure now. I’ll hand it over to Tejas for the OPEX on the network.
Operator
Thanks, thanks for the question. And actually if you look at just quarter on quarter and I’m just clarifying the numbers we had 2,361 on network cost in the prior quarter we are at 2, 3, 4 5. So small decline and I think I spoke about the cost management efforts as well. So and second broadly over the last few years we worked on reducing our dependence on diesel and working on electrification of our networks. I think that has also helped Abhijit has also in the past spoken about our self optimized network.
So I think both of them put together has allowed to keep the network cost flattish in a way.
Sanjesh Jain
No, no, I was referring more like we have added 6% more site on a yoy basis on the. On the number of site if I add the loading it is much higher. We have added almost 70,000 BTs in last 12 months while the growth on the network opex is just 0.8%. Obviously it appears very heartening but how sustainable is this and should we see inflation coming from next year or there’s more scope.
Operator
So I think both I’ll answer the quarter and the full year actually you’ll see the same trend on quarter and on full year. I think we’ve definitely benefited with the efficiency efforts that we have spoken in the past. So you are right we have been able to offset the increase that you would have otherwise seen on the rollout cost. So I think that one is totally aligned. Also if you look at the cash cost which we also look at a cash EBITDA in the future you will see a little bit of inflation but our efforts on efficiency will not go away.
So we will attempt to offset increase of the rollout. But yes we will be then lapping a year off this benefit already and hence you might see some inflation going forward as well. But for this year and this quarter as you’re saying it was heartening to see the efforts fructifying to be able to offset the rollout cost with efficiency.
Sanjesh Jain
Got it. Thanks Abhijit. Thanks Tejas for all those answers and best of luck for the coming quarters.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you.
Vivekanand Subaraman
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vivekanand Subaraman from Ambit. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Abhijit, I wanted an update on the seven key metrics that you are tracking. Now my understanding is that there are certain input metrics and the remainder are output metrics. So of the KPIs that you’re tracking which are input related, what are the highest priority areas for FY27 and is there any thought process that you can share with us to help us understand this better and how this translates into you being able to step up outcome metrics like data usage per customer or even the ARPU number that you are talking about the customer ARPU number.
Thank you.
Abhijit Kishore
Yeah, Vivekanand, thanks for the question. So those seven metrics that I spoke of that we track is basically revenue, ebitda, customer addition, then the broadband customer edition, ARPU site and the data usage. So if you really look at it, other than the data customers and the subscribers, most of them are the output related metrics. If you were to really all of these seven are very, very critical for us. But one of the things that you know, we have always been asked question is on the subscriber because you know, while we will have three pillars of growth that we have always looked at, which is one is on the ARPU upgrade, which is whether it is from a base or the upgrade, second is on the customer edition.
So Customer Edition remains a key priority focus for us
Gaurav Malhotra
Which
Abhijit Kishore
Is, you know, what is turned into positive from Feb onwards and we will continue that momentum to build on that. As far as the output is concerned on the ARPU I spoke about on the premiumization, I think that agenda is also a very very critical agenda. On the other part, I think the one of the very critical agenda for us looking at the gap that we have is on the rollout and the deployment on the network for for both 4G and 5G which is again part of the 7 metric. So I think in a manner all 7 are critical.
But from an input point of view, customer addition, site rollout and the broadband customer, which is a 4G 5G customer, these three remain from a very, very critical one from an input parameter point of view.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, very helpful. Just one follow up on the customer addition question. Your Churn has moderated quite a bit this quarter and if I look at the gross ads, they seem to be lower on a year on year basis, most likely because of your churn getting moderated. So what has really helped you in terms of moderating subscriber churn and the related question is is there any moderation in the market activity at an industry level to reduce the rotational churn? Are there any initiatives that you want to call out and how should we think about the churn for you, let’s say in the next 12 months the direction as well as any numeric thought process that you want to share.
Thank you.
Abhijit Kishore
Thanks. Thanks Vivekanand for asking that question. I think while yes, the answer is that we have kind of reduced in the churn percentage but still if you were to look at the industry, we are very high. So that is one area that we are still working on. And as I was telling Sanjay that the areas where we have invested relatively more than the other areas, we clearly see delta of redemptivity. And it is obvious from the fact that the customers, when they’re getting the experience, they tend to stay with us.
And obviously there are X percentage of customers which keeps migrating from either a feature phone to a smartphone and then they have an opportunity of upgrading it within our network. That adds to our attentivity exercise. The other part of the thing that I’d like to address is on the gross addition which you said and your observation is absolutely correct, we have taken some of the strategic decisions of reducing some of the cost of acquisition, which effectively means a better quality of customer.
Because in this industry the cost of acquisition willingly and willingly gets translated into a discounting in the market. So we are cognizant of that. And as and when we are launching the network, both 4G and 5G, we are conscious of of that and we are reducing the cost of acquisition and also spreading our business through the distribution channel to start focusing more on the quality of customer acquisition rather than the quantity of customer acquisition. And that is one of the reason why in the last call, earnings call I had said that if you were to really look at our acquisition in quarter two, our acquisition was 21.8 million, which was dropped to 19.3 million in quarter three and which we have maintained at 19.1 million in quarter four was in a manner by design to ensure that we are able to get a better quality of customer.
And that obviously reflects in a better churn. And that’s one part of it. The second part is on the MNP which is a large industry as you would imagine in the Indian context, 47% of the customer acquisition happens where the customer is moving from one to the other operator, we have been a small player in that with around 20 odd percent share and I think that’s something that we are focusing on again in the areas where we are putting a network. So there is a very very focused strategy market by market to look at.
How do we extract from the infrastructure that we are putting both on 4G and 5G.
Unidentified Participant
Thanks Abhijit for the detailed explanation. My last question is not just to you but to Tejas as well. So currently your cash ebitda margin is 20 and a half percent. I want to understand from you the capex cycle after you complete it. Where do you see this EBITDA margin trend towards? Because we know that the gap between your EBITDA margin and that of the peers is very significant. If you can help us understand how we should think about it quantitatively and also any levers that you want to point out.
I think some of them you discussed already which is your cost curtailment program on network and sgna. But if you can help us think this through better it will be great. Because last year we didn’t see any incremental EBITDA margin because revenue got added but cash EBITDA didn’t flow through.
Operator
Thanks for the question. I think as you have heard us before, if you look at the ambition that Abhijit has shared at the investor call we had we are significantly looking to uptake our revenue enhance also the flow through to the EBITDA cash margin. If you see where we are today we are at 20% and you are absolutely right. As I think of the next 34 years this has to absolutely increase. If you kind of use the same numbers I’ve shared with you before in terms of a dividend digit revenue growth and the cash EBITDA number, this will be north of 35% right now, in which year, in which exact year, etc.
I think we don’t want to share that numbers but that should be our ambition and that will be the EBITDA margin. If we do what we have said in the past on our revenue growth and our cash EBITDA growth and I think the levers as you have said and again we have discussed in the past as well, largely three levers of growth which is customer Abhijit has spoken about it. Arpu I think we have spoken about it. I think the industry pricing architecture over the next two, three years and as that plays through and our own confidence on dropping churn, which we have seen, the performance of our circles that we have seen when we will put our CapEx, those are all the levers we will use and leverage as we look at flowing this revenue into the bottom line.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you, Deshas. Appreciate the color all the way.
Operator
Thanks. Thank you.
Vivekanand Subaraman
Thank you. Next question is from the line of ritvik Agrawal from 3P Investment Manager. Please go ahead.
Ritvik Agrawal
Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Just wanted to understand with the ongoing increase in smartphone prices due to RAM shortage, how are we seeing this migration from 2G to 4G? And the second question on CapEx, I feel this quarter the CapEx was lower as compared to some of our peers. Where do you think this can go in the coming quarters?
Abhijit Kishore
Thanks, Hrithik, for asking that question. So I think from a smartphone penetration point of view, yes, there’s a little bit of a dip that we saw in the smartphone being sold in the country, but I think to my mind that’s more temporary and it’s not kind of a phenomena that’s going to stay. And we see typically this between a 3 to 4% upgrade within our network itself on the customers who are upgrading from a feature phone to a smartphone. And that doesn’t seem to be coming down, at least in the last few months that we have noticed.
We are keeping a close eye. I don’t think that’s, to be honest, a concern. So that’s point number one. Point number two is the way we really look at it. Is the opportunity and the headroom available. And as I said, we have 33% of our base using a 2G handset, which is a large opportunity as compared to anybody else in the industry. And we are really focusing on that opportunity and starting to put the network in those areas and capacities in these areas where we have those kind of a customer who will upgrade and they need to have a much better experience.
So I don’t think that, to be honest, is a concern. On the second question is on the CapEx, you know, as I said, we have spent 8,700 crores in the last full year versus 9,600 crore of the previous year. You know, our CapEx intensity as we have laid out our plan for the next three years of 45,000 crore absolutely remains intact and we are on that course. So you will see a far greater intensity of the CapEx starting from quarter one and then even intensifying in the subsequent quarters of this financial year.
Gaurav Malhotra
Understood. Thank you.
Vivekanand Subaraman
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Gaurav Malhotra from Axis. Please go ahead.
Gaurav Malhotra
Yeah, hi, thanks for the opportunity. Just a couple of questions. So one, when I look at the VLR subscriber number percentage, it’s still lower than peers. So just wanted to get a sense on, you know, why this should be lower than competitors. And the second question is, you know, now that you know you have launched 5G, any sense on FWA plans etc. Thanks.
Abhijit Kishore
Thanks for the question. So I’ll answer the second one first. So on the fwa, yes we are kind of looking at some of the pilots. You know, as we said that we launched Mumbai on the 5G last year and now we are upwards of 80 cities. We are evaluating FWA but right now the focus largely on the mobility because I think we have a large gap on the mobility front on both 4G and 5G. So I think the focus will definitely be on the mobility and the connectivity. FWA will be a part of the strategy but only in a select places.
So that’s the strategy that is there. That’s what we had said even last time on the VLR question. We have a mix of customers who because of the network experience remains patchy at some time which obviously results also into a much higher churn. So that’s the only reason that we see that we have a fairly decent proportion or a large proportion of customers who keep moving in and out of the network which impacts the VLR being. So this VLR percentage if I look at some of the circles are upwards of 93, 92% but in certain circles it pulls us down by 80% and hence it remains that in the range of 88, 87%.
So that’s the, that’s the answer to the VLR.
Gaurav Malhotra
So if I, if I understand correctly it’s not as if these are inactive subscribers, it is just that they may be multi sim, multisimmers who are sort of, maybe some of them are not using the VI number as frequently to fall within the VLR ambit. Is that, is that my understanding correct?
Abhijit Kishore
Primarily yes. Gaurav? Primarily yes, they could be because you know obviously some of them will fall into inactive and hence then they churn out and which kind of gives the delta to be a larger churn. But primarily these are not the inactive customers. They are the customer who are in and out of the network depending upon their experience and their use
Gaurav Malhotra
And just a follow up. So this, this sort of shifting customers, these would be 4G or these would be more 2G customers.
Abhijit Kishore
It will be a mix of both, actually. 2G and 4G. So depending upon, you know, which geography and which circle are we looking at?
Gaurav Malhotra
Depending
Abhijit Kishore
Upon how they experience it. Yeah.
Gaurav Malhotra
Thank you.
Abhijit Kishore
Thanks.
Vivekanand Subaraman
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Balaji Subramanian from iifl. Please go ahead.
Balaji Subramanian
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two questions. The first one is on the subscriber growth side. While we can see and understand the different levers that you have for ARPU, and you have clearly articulated that as well, how do you see the subscriber growth going forward? The context I’m asking is this. So we have two strong operators who have reached fairly close to their steady state subscriber market share. And from there on, what is your strategy to grow the subscriber base?
Is it going to be churning customers away from them? Does that mean that we are going to see a higher marketing spend across the industry? And the second question would be on, you know what exactly? How do you plan to make the spectrum payouts from FY28 onwards? FY27 looks fairly manageable because based on whatever plan commitment that you might end up receiving and the promoter, equity inclusion. But going forward, especially, you know, in case there is no further equity issuance and no, you know, meaningful conversion of any spectrum debt into government equity, how do you plan to tackle those?
Thank you.
Abhijit Kishore
Thanks, Balaji. I’ll take the first one on the subscribers. So four clear levers on the subscriber edition. First is obviously as I spoke and some of your colleagues asked on the base path. So one part of our, as you know, our base turn is 4.3%, which is pretty significantly higher than the others. The moment we start putting in the network and the capacity, we clearly see that to be coming down, you know, we are targeting a 0.5, 0.6% reduction in the churn. So that’s one lever on the customer addition for which I really don’t have to go out and look in the market.
Second part on the subscriber edition is the new population that I’m adding. Over the last six quarters, we have added 125 million more population within the area where we have covered over the next, I’ll say a year, year and a half. When we add another, you know, 60, 70,000 sites on the 4G, that’s another 125. So that makes it roughly, roughly around 250 million more population, which I’m not covering. So that’s the second lever for me to have the growth, which is a territory where I’m not present today.
Third, I spoke about the MLP which is obviously I’m participating in that market, but I’m not really fairly represented in that market. And that’s the third one. And that linking to your point on saying will that be really taking customers from others? And I think if you obviously know the market, roughly around 101.4 odd crores customer every month is in the market in the MNT segment to be acquired. I think we play a very small part there with some 3 odd million customers. So there is 1.1 crore customers in the market which is shifting side between the two operators.
I think that’s the third lever which is clearly there. And the last one is wherever we are going to put network or where we already have network. We have been overleveraging the network on the gross acquisition which I touched upon briefly, which really means that your quality of customer that you acquire is not as good as probably the other operators. And we are now focusing very clearly on making sure that our quality of customer is as per the industry standards, which we see as an opportunity.
So these four things put together, what the strategy is on the customer acquisition as far as on the higher spend because of the customer acquisition? No. The answer is no. We will rather put per sub cost of acquisition to be lower than this year. But yeah, if there is a volume variance which happens as compared to this year, those costs will go up. I will rather be focusing more which is again one of the stated strategy that we discussed us is on the brand reappraisal. And I think that’s one area, an opportunity for us to see that now that the vicious cycle of losing customer confidence because of the AGR overhang once that is kind of now conclusively behind us, we see a very, very clear opportunity and the gap in the market to put and reappraise our brand and its positioning.
So you will see some heightened activity on that front, but definitely not in the market to kind of participate in the market if I’m not really getting the equality customer.
Vivekanand Subaraman
Balaji,
Abhijit Kishore
I think
Balaji Subramanian
My first question, if I have, if I can have a quick follow up. So when you said the second point on expanding population coverage. So I would presume that there would be at least, you know, one of the other two large competitors there. Right. So that also would entail, you know, some bit of, you know, you know, churning away from them, assuming that, you know, or you know, MNP led gains there. So is that a fair statement?
Abhijit Kishore
Yeah, there would be some part of that in those areas because Obviously, if there are only two players available or one player available and the market is large, I’ll. I’ll be able to participate in that area.
Balaji Subramanian
Yeah, that answers my first question in case. Yeah. On the second. Yeah,
Abhijit Kishore
Yeah.
Operator
So on your question on the Spectrum payout, right. I think right now we are not looking at any kind of change or adjustment in the Spectrum payout. I think to your question, how are we looking to pay this? I think if I can just simply articulate it, let’s say over the next three years, and I think these are numbers are discussion that we’ve had probably in the past as well. If you look at our CAPEX ambition, we want to spend 45,000 crores of capex over the next three years, which is 7,000, 15,000, 27,000.
This is the spectrum I have to pay. That makes it 49,000. And then I have to also service my debt that I’m taking. So let’s say another say 5,6000 or if you add up that that’s about a lakh crore. I’m starting this year with a cash balance of both the 3500 crores. Now let me look at the cash sources for the next three years as we share. We want to really look at tripling our ebitda and I think we spoke about the levers as well. That gives me a cumulative cash EBITDA between FY27, 28 and 29 of about 60,000.
We’ve spoken about the debt 25,000 crores funded and a rolling LC facility which we will keep utilizing for the next three years. So that gives me another 35,000. On top of that we have the CLAM settlement and we have had confidence in our income tax refund that we’ve also shown in the past. That amount itself will be another 10,000 in totality with the clam and the IT refund. So that gives you 105 plus the opening balance. And I think now what you see in terms of promoter infusion that will actually go on top of already a positive cash flow.
So I think in that sense we are very confident that with the bank loan for the CAPEX and for the EBITDA addition, we will be able to fulfill all obligations across the next years. And now the inclusion of course is on top. So that is what we have shared and that’s what I would like to say. Hope that helps. Balaji.
Balaji Subramanian
Okay, thank you. This is very clear and super helpful. All the best.
Abhijit Kishore
Thank you, Balaji. Thank
Vivekanand Subaraman
You, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll take that as the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Abhijit Kishore for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Abhijit Kishore
Thank you. Let me wrap up by restating our ambition. You know, as you heard Tejas say, our three year targets are unambiguous, sustained net customer addition, double digit revenue growth and triple the EBITDA. We are backing these targets with 45,000 crore of investment, strong promoter commitment and a leadership team that has managed through some of these most challenging conditions in the Indian telecom and emerged intact. The worst is behind us. The seven key parameters that we track are already moving in the right direction.
The seventh net subscriber edition is narrowing fast. We enter FY27 with a clear strategy, improving operational momentum and growing confidence in the trajectory ahead. Thank you all for joining us.
Vivekanand Subaraman
Thank you. On behalf of Vodafone Idea Ltd. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.