Mobile services provider, Vodafone India has chalked out massive expansion plan in Gujarat circle by strengthening its 2G and 3G network coverage, company officials informed. *
In order to expand its 2G and 3G network coverage, Vodafone in Gujarat has planned to set up over 200 mobile towers/sites every month for the next 5-6 months.
“Since January this year, we have added over 950 sites across the state. In the next six months, we will aggressively expand our tower network by setting up 200 sites every month,” said Brajesh Bajpai, Business Head – Gujarat, Vodafone India during a media interaction here.
Towards strengthening of the mobile network in the state the company invested around Rs 400 crore in the past seven months.
According to Bajpai, in Gujarat circle revenues from data services have been growing at the pace of 90 per cent per annum and will increase further with increasing usage of 3G devices. Data revenues constitute 15 per cent of the company’s total revenue in Gujarat circle.
With the revenue market share of 37.7 per cent in the circle, the company has a subscriber base of 1.74 crore clients with 1.4 million post-paid users. The company has over 6 million data subscribers in the state.
Even as the company’s mobile-based money transfer service, M-Pesa is reportedly growing at 90 per cent month-over-month, it is still at the nascent stage. It has over 50,000 subscribers of the service with about 4500 agents providing services. “The M-Pesa segment is still at nascent stage. It will take some time to grow,” said Bajpai.
* Correction:
The investment amount has been removed as it was incorrect.