Vodafone Idea (Vi) has added ~10,800 4G FDD sites primarily through refarming of 2G/3G spectrum to expand our 4G coverage and capacity during the July-September quarter.

Vi has shutdown ~9,600 3G sites in India.

Vi’s broadband site count stood at 450,481 in Q2 FY22 compared to 447,114 in Q1FY22. Till date, Vi has deployed over 65,000 TDD sites in addition to the deployment of ~13,850 Massive MIMO sites and ~13,000 small cells.

Capex spend for Q2FY22 was Rs 13 billion vs Rs. 9.4 billion in Q1FY22.

“We continue to expand our LTE 900 presence in 12 circles at multiple locations, including through dynamic spectrum refarming, to improve customer experience. Our 4G network covers over 1 billion Indians as of September 30, 2021,” Vi said.

“We continue to improve our 4G subscriber base on the back of superior data and voice experience on Vi GIGAnet, India’s fastest mobile network, which is testified through consistent top rankings in Ookla and TRAI. We continue to focus on executing our strategy to improve our competitive position and win in the marketplace,” Ravinder Takkar, MD and CEO of Vodafone Idea, said.

The subscriber base stands at 253.0 million vs 255.4 million in Q1FY22, a decline of 2.4 million. Vi’s 4G user base rose by 3.3 million to 116.2 million. Subscriber churn has improved to 2.9 percent in Q2FY22 vs 3.5 percent in Q1FY22. Data usage per 4G subscriber is now at 14.5 GB/month vs 11.8 GB/month a year ago.

ARPU improved to Rs 109, up 5.3 percent QoQ vs Rs 104 in Q1FY22.

“This quarter we had taken certain pricing initiatives to improve ARPU, in line with our stated strategy. We increased the entry level prepaid pricing plan from Rs. 49 to Rs. 79, in a phased manner, as well as increased the tariffs in some postpaid plans,” Ravinder Takkar said.