British telecom giant Vodafone plans major expansion in India and plans to invest of over £1.30 billion in the country to upgrade and expand its network and in its payments bank operations.
The announcement was made after Vodafone's global head Vittorio Colao met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in London last week. Vodafone, which is India's No. 2 telecom operator with over 188 million subscribers, however, didn't give details about the investments. Vodafone said that out of the total proposed investment, £800 million would go towards enhancement, upgradation and expansion of its network coverage. Vodafone has called this investment in "Digital India".
In addition, £400 million would go towards "Make in India for the World". This would include investments to further increase capacity and upgrade its high-end technology centre and IT and customer experience centres in Pune and Ahmedabad. It would also set up a state-of-the-art tier-4 data centre in the country.
The balance £100 million would go into the Payment Bank business, a permit for which the company recently acquired from the RBI. Vodafone added that it hoped to increase its headcount in India to 15,000 in the next two years.
The statement further said that Vodafone was the largest FDI investor in the country as it had invested over £11.10 billion and contributed over £10 billion to the exchequer.
