Vodafone Idea has appointed Jagbir Singh as chief technology officer (CTO). Jagbir Singh will be replacing Vishant Vora, who quit in October citing personal reasons.
Jagbir Singh was Group CTO at Smartfren Telecom, Indonesia, and was responsible for network, IT and digital platforms and enterprise business.

Jagbir Singh earlier worked with Reliance Jio. Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Jio is the number one telecom operator in India.

Vodafone Idea has added 11,000 broadband base stations during Q2 fiscal 2020-21. Capex of the third largest telecom operator remained below pre-Covid levels at around 10 percent of sales, that is likely to keep network quality uncompetitive.

Capex intensity increased to INR10.4 billion in 2QFY21 vs INR6 billion in 1QFY21, post low capex during the lockdown, Motilal Oswal said in a research report.

“Vi continues to be in a vicious circle of inadequate network investment, market share losses, and inability to invest in network driving further losses,” JP Morgan said in a research report.

Vodafone Idea has lost 8 million mobile phone customers to reach 271.8 million. Active mobile subscribers of Vodafone Idea fell by 11.8 million to 261.2 million.

Vodafone Idea’s data / broadband subscribers increased by 1.8 million / 3.4 million in 2QFY21 to 137.5 million /119.8 million.

4G subsciber base of Vodafone Idea stood at 106.1 million, implying a 1.5 million increase in Q2 as compared with 1 million loss in 1QFY21.