Idea Cellular today said it will be making an investment of Rs 6,500 crore to Rs 7,000 towards Capex (Capital expenditure) in fiscal 2017.
For comparison, Idea Cellular has more than doubled its past three years average Capex spends with network investment of Rs 7,770 crore in fiscal 2016.
Idea investment
The Aditya Birla group company integrated 48,878 sites — 14,466 2G Sites, 19,769 3G sites and 14,643 4G sites — reaching a total of 191,536 sites.
Idea rolled out 14,466 2G cell sites, 19,769 3G sites and 14,643 4G cell sites during the year, highest ever rollout of 48,878 sites in a year. The total site count stands at 191,536 – 126,833 for 2G, 50,060 for 3G and 14,643 for 4G.
Idea Cellular expanded its fiber coverage by doubling its annual rollout to 22,100 KM against 11,400 KM in fiscal 2015, reaching 115,500 KM of OFC presence.
Idea Cellular’s GSM coverage has reached nearly 1 billion Indian spread over more than 390,000+ towns and villages. Wireless broadband coverage has expanded to 388 million Indian across 17 circles, covering 61,975 towns and villages. Idea’s own 3G spectrum in 13 service areas covers 50 percent of these circles population.
Idea 4G services coverage reached 3,946 towns and villages in 10 service areas — Maharashtra & Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Haryana, Punjab, Karnataka, Orissa, NESA and Tamil Nadu including Chennai.
Besides 4G, Idea invested in its 3G expansion and its 3G data volume rose by nearly 2.1 times from 91.2 billion MB in FY15 to 188.8 billion MB in FY16.
The company added 8.4 million new 3G users in last one year, now serving overall 22.9 million 3G data customers. Presently, 60.4 million (+23.9 million) of Idea’s 175 million subscribers upgraded their phone to 3G/4G smartphone including 11.1 million 4G smartphone owners.
The mobile data revenue is now contributing 20.1 percent of service revenue and non voice revenue contribution has increased to 28.3 percent from 24.5 percent in Q4 FY15.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
