Vodafone Idea Limited (IDEA.NS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. May I request everyone to please settle down. So, I think before we start, we had an unfortunate accident today morning, where the Deputy Chief Minister of our State Maharashtra, passed away. So, before we start the proceedings, may I request a moment of silence in respect of that. Thank you.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Grand Hyatt Mumbai, myself Vaibhav, Fire and Safety Officer of the Hotel. [Audio Gap] For any kind of medical emergency, we have a doctor on call and trained first aid team members. While evacuating do not panic, our trained emergency response team will help you to reach the assembly area. I wish you a great day ahead. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Vaibhav. I formally thank [Audio Gap] To introduce the leadership team and take this session forward. Abhijit, over to you.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Arpit, and good evening, and a very warm welcome to all of you present here in this room as well as to all of you who have joined us online from different parts of the world. [Audio Gap] I'll start from the extreme left. We have Ranjan. Ranjan heads our commercial function. I must say that we are in for a big, big commercial discussions. We have already done that. And now going forward, Ranjan is a very, very important player and a veteran in the telecom industry. Pankaj Kapdeo, another veteran. He is the Chief Legal Counsel for us, been with us for over 2.5 decades. Ambika leads our Chief Regulatory and External Affairs function. I'll say fairly new to the telecom, but that brings an outside-in perspective. Ambika joins us last year 1.5 years back from Netflix. Guru, our Chief HR Officer, again, brings diverse experience, was last in Aditya Birla Fashion, has joined us roughly around six, eight months back. Arvind, I'll say half and half, half FMCG, half telco for the last 10 years with us, heads our enterprise business. Avneesh Khosla, again, a veteran in telecom with Vodafone earlier and Vodafone Idea now for the last eight, nine years. He's the Chief Marketing Officer. Jagbir is our CTO. I jokingly call him father of the Indian telco system. He's been there. He's credited with actually launching most of the network in the country and not only in the country, but across many international places, heads the technology. And then the latest entrant is Tejas. Tejas joins us very recently from Mondelez as he's the new CFO for us. So if you really see the diverse experience that we have, and this is the team which is really accountable for Vodafone Idea Limited and to take it forward. Thank you, gentlemen and lady. We'll get you back here on the question-and-answer session when we start that question and answer. Since this is my first interaction with most of you, let me introduce myself for people who don't know me. I am Abhijit and taken over as the CEO of this company five months back. While that's a new role, not new to the industry, not new to the company, been in the industry now for over 30 years, in different geography that served 16 different markets over the last 30 years, different operators, different functions. And I also joined Vodafone earlier and then Vodafone Idea, was there in the operations team. So before taking over this role, I used to head the enterprise as a Director for the Enterprise business in Vodafone Idea. And then from there, I took over as the Chief Operating Officer for the last four years before I moved into this role. Interested in the industry. And hence, I also chair Cellular Operator Association of India as well as the India Mobile Congress. As the name suggests, the construct of this meeting is a little different. It's a cross-section of people, people online, people in this room, analysts, investors. And hence, we call it a meeting where we need to talk about our story. the story that for a long period of time, we have not really spoken about. And I think as the new CEO and the reenergized and the super confident team now, we need to decide on what part of the story we carry forward and what part of the story we rewrite. We'll have -- I'll keep this session a little interactive. And obviously, there will be a question and answer, but I'll keep my session for probably 30 to 35, 40 minutes, try and give you a little background on what's really happening in our business, and then we'll open the house for the Q&A. Okay. Let me move of saying why are we here today? Three very, very specific topics to be covered. One, on the recent development. All of you have heard about it. You read about it, but I think it is the right place for us to talk about what's the development and what's our perspective on that development. Second, very important, glimpses of our business, the way we look at it. There are shades, there are colors, which probably is not seen. And I think it's important for us to talk about some of those shades and colors and then present our story. And then thirdly and very, very importantly, what's the way forward. So these are the three distinct chapters, I would say, in our mind. Let me start with the recent development. The month of December has been a pretty eventful month for us in Vodafone Idea Limited. Distinct events, three of them. The first one is the NCD. I think all of you are aware that we could raise INR 3,300 crores on the NCD. What is more important are the factors that we could raise this despite the fact that the AGR clarity was not there. This was raised before the AGR clarity came. The marquee name of the lenders as well as this allows us to continue with the momentum that we have built over the last few quarters on the CapEx. And I'll talk a little bit more about the investments that we have made and how this quantum of money really helps us drive the business to move it forward. I think the second very important thing is what we call CLAM, which is basically a contingent liability adjustment mechanism. For people who are not aware, when the merger took place, Vodafone plc and VIL had an agreement of capping of INR 8,400 crores, which was for this period of seven years, which expired on 30th of June '25. That money was to be given by Vodafone plc to VIL provided VIL makes the payment for the AGR dues. Now this was obviously sub judice. We made a payment of INR 2,000 crores in the year 2020, and hence, that INR 2,000 crores was kind of paid by Vodafone plc to VIL. And hence, the remaining amount was INR 6,400 crores. The agreement obviously expired in June. And hence, from that point of view, this money was really not due from an agreement point of view. But I think Vodafone plc as a committed promoter extended that period of agreement till 31st of December of 2025 and has also executed that in two parts. So, out of the INR 6,400 crores, which is due, INR 2,300 crores is something that will be paid in cash over the next 12 months. And Vodafone plc has also taken INR 328 crores share, which has been kept earmarked for VIL, which VIL can sell when the need arises. So I think it's a very, very defining moment from the commitment of a promoter into the company. And I think the third part, which is extremely important for all of us is the AGR. All of you have read about it. I think, to my mind, it is definitive, conclusive long-term solution with a very clear visibility on our cash flow. We are very thankful to the Honorable Supreme Court as well as to the Government of India to get this done. And this is not for Vodafone Idea Limited as a company alone. It is more for the country. It is more for the digital infrastructure that the government has the vision to put. And this is in that direction that this relief comes more as a Vodafone Idea Limited as well as from the country's point of view of helping the digital infrastructure flourish in this company. Let me take a moment on talking about what this AGR is. I'm sure some of you have read it, all of you have read it in the newspaper. But from our side, this is -- the first part is that the dues are frozen as on 31st of December 2025. That due amount is INR 87,695 crores. That's the first point. The second point is that for the next 10 years, there's a very small amount of payment that we need to make to the government, and I'll talk about it. And the third important point is that there is a reassessment of the entire amount of INR 87,695 crores, which has already started. In the first four years, we need to pay maximum of INR 124 crores every year to the government. The next four year is INR 100 crores. And the last six years, which is from '35 to '41, we pay in six equal installment, whatever the reassessed amount is, which is frozen at INR 8,7694 crores, but the reassessment is going on. We have all the documents because it's a long reassessment starting from 2006, '07 to '18, '19. So it's a long reassessment. But the good part is that the pace of reassessment at different levels are extremely, extremely encouraging, and we expect to close that very fast. And whatever is that amount, which is reassessed is then kind of distributed over the 6 equal installment towards the last part of the payment, which starts from '36 till '41. So, I think, from our point of view, this was the biggest overhang, which was there is behind us. And with that, now let me move to the next section of saying that if AGR judgment loomed large over us over all these years, what it really did to us. And we are being very, very pragmatic in saying what it did to us. And it's a vicious cycle of where we were for the longest period of time. AGR overhang resulted into funding not being there, funding not being there resulted into investments and deployments of the network, which effectively meant network experience took a beating. That led to a brand perception and a loss of customer confidence and eventually a loss of customer. And this, over the last couple of years has been the cycle that we have been there. And I'll show you some of the data to kind of tell what I'm trying to explain. And in my opinion, there was an unprecedented force which got unleashed on us over these years. Despite the fact that we were being written off almost every single day, we stood committed, the promoters stood committed, our teams stood resilient and we could do small little things that we could manage within the resources that we had. And we kept our customer obsession alive rather than getting sucked into the negativity. Even in the toughest of the time, we kept our motto of the customer obsession alive by offering differentiated products and services, whether it is in the consumer space or in the enterprise space. And we made sure that our brand is still the loved brand that is there. From there, we moved also -- while this is one of the elements that we are doing, I think another important part to note here is that in all these years, we could also make payment for all the bank debt that we had. We cleared INR 36,500 crores of loan in the last six years before the FPO. And this was all from the internal accruals. So that really shows the efficiency on the financial part as well as the business part that we could deliver despite the tough time that we were really going through. In the similar time frame, we also post-merger, got an equity infusion by the promoters of INR 27,000 crores, which again shows the commitment from both Vodafone plc as well as the ABG Group. And then we moved on to the FPO, which is two years back, one of the most successful FPOs that we did. I think for the longest period of time, we have been pretty inconsistent as far as the investment is concerned. If you see here, from quarter 1 of FY '24, we have been on an average, spending roughly around INR 400-odd crores on the network deployment. And at the same time when the competition was really investing upwards of INR 4,500 crores, INR 5,000 crores a quarter, not as an industry as one operator. So you can imagine the kind of scale, which was there. And then comes the FPO money, which is where we started to invest the stronger kitty that we had. Obviously, we had to plan and kind of prioritize the markets that we wanted to invest in. And this, over the last seven quarters, we have invested INR 16,000 crores, which has reflected in increasing the brand experience through a network experience. We added more than 100,000 sites. And let me kind of explain this. We've not kind of captured. We also added. So we had the infrastructure, which was only 4G. The 2G was not there. We also added 2G in that. We had 4G, but all layers was not added. So we added the layers to make sure that the customers are able to get the best experience that they could because we have the spectrum availability, which is pretty decent and adequate for us. We also kind of increased the capacity. One of the challenges that we have in the business or we had was to say that it is not really about the coverage. In a city like Mumbai or a city like Delhi or a Pune or an urban market, the issue was not really the coverage. The issue was how do you experience this if you have the site which is congested. So we needed to decongest the site. So when you see 43% of our capacity was increased in all these sites, which then kind of gave a very different level of experience to the customers in all these markets, not only the urban market, but also the rural market. We also increased our population coverage by 100 million in the last six to seven quarters. We were at a 77% coverage. We are now at around 85.5%, 86% coverage at a pan-India level. So that's a pretty significant amount of money that we have invested in driving the experience for our customer. We also launched 5G in 43 cities. As we speak today, last week, while we have launched 43 city, Kerala was the first circle where every single district is covered now with 5G. And you'll see more of that coming in different cities and different circles going forward. What it did to us, I think it's important to understand that over the last six years, if you track and all of you would have this number, we were losing in the range of 15 million to 16 million customers a year. I have just projected two years here, which has come down significantly in this year at right now at a 5.3 million. This includes the report that we have done yesterday. If I take the Q3 out, and I'll -- at a very broad level, tell you about a Q3, this number of 5.3 million that you see on a negative at a cumulative basis for the year was 1.5 million. So if you really see the swing is of almost a 12 million swing barring the quarter 3. The reason I'm calling out quarter 3 is because we, by design, took some corrective stance in certain circles to make sure that after the deployment of the CapEx and the investment, we start acquiring a customer, which is a good quality customer. And hence, we took that call consciously to go slow on the acquisition in certain markets so that the quality of customer that we acquired is far better, and you will see that cascading impact in the coming quarters. The other part that I wanted to really talk about before I get on to the way forward is -- and this question is often asked on saying, where have you guys invested? It's not showing up at an overall level, it's not really giving the return. And I just want to kind of give you this glimpse of saying there are different ways of looking at picture. The money that we have invested in this, currently, if I were to look at December over December revenue at a national level, we are growing at around 3%. But in the markets where we have invested in the capacity and the coverage that I just explained, we have grown by 5.5%, 6%, 5.7% and the markets that I have not touched, I have not touched 40%, 45% of the market because obviously, the kitty was a particular kitty. We needed to prioritize that. And hence, we have kind of managed to keep the priority intact. So this is the number as far as the growth is concerned. I also want to kind of give you a little flavor of how has this panned out when I look at some of the markets which are very different. And I picked up two markets to just give an example and make the point. If you look at Maharashtra, this is the actual picture of Maharashtra before we started the rollout, which is September '24. When we got the FPO, we have not started the rollout. If you see here, Maharashtra has 36 districts. We were less than 80% covered in 23 out of the 36 districts of Maharashtra. When we started and we had adequate spectrum, but we had not fired those spectrum on all the sites. And hence, the customers were not really getting the experience that they wanted. This is what we did when we put the investment in Maharashtra. And obviously, Maharashtra is one of our critical circles. So we have moved the needle from now being only four markets or five markets now, which is less than 80% and most of the markets getting covered. Now this has given me a disproportionate result as far as Maharashtra as a circle is concerned. What you saw there at a 3% growth at a country level. In Maharashtra, if I were to look at December over December, it's a 9% growth. What I saw there as a 5.7% growth on the invested market is 14% here. And the good news here is that in Maharashtra, quarter 2 onwards, we started to even grow and add customers month-on-month, which very clearly reflects one thing that if we are putting in the CapEx, we are putting in the investment in the right places in the adequate quantity and consistently, the market is responding very, very positively as far as -- this is another example of UP East, similar place, different markets are at a different stage. So UP East was at a very different stage of network deployment by us and by competition. This is what we did in UP East over the last three, four, five quarters. And the result, again, is for us to see at 11% growth in the invested versus a 9% on the -- at a circle level. And then there are circles. Out of the 22 circles, if I look at a circle level growth, December over December, we are growing in 14 out of the 22. We have 17 priority circles, the way we say. Out of the 17 priority circles, these are all 13, 14 priority markets which are growing. So I think the journey has started. It's a long haul. We've not been investing. We lost a significant amount of customers. So it's taking a little bit of a time for us to get back. But I think the proof of the pudding is the eating, and I think that's very, very clearly visible. Moving on from here. The other thing that I also wanted to show because we also kind of, at times, look at a picture from one point of view, which to say, what is my subscriber trajectory looking like, which is what I just showed, which has started to move. But I also wanted to show you some of the other things on the way we look at the business. We look at seven parameters in this business. What is the number of sites that I have added? What is the broadband customer, which is the data customer that is increasing or the 4G, 5G customers that are increasing? What is my revenue growth? What is my EBITDA growth? What is my ARPU growth? And what is my consumption growth? Because if the consumption is there, which means that the customers are enjoying the network, they have a better experience and hence, they will use. If you see all of these parameters other than the subs, which has started to move into the positive direction, all of them are for the last six quarters, moving into the positive direction, whether it is an ARPU, whether it is the broadband subscriber, whether it is the revenue, whether it is EBITDA. So if I look at it holistically with all these things put together, six out of the seven parameters that we look at from a business point of view is pointing in all in one direction. And even the subscriber loss, which was huge for us, has been absolutely narrowed. And we are very confident that we'll kind of get past this negative customer add very, very soon. So now with this key challenge behind us, like we have discussed in the previous section, this was the biggest overhang. And hence, this really marks the beginning of a new era for Vi. Telecom is not new to us. We have been in this business for the last three decades. We have all the right infrastructures. We have the scale. We have the distribution muscle. We have the execution power. We have the team. We have the infrastructure. What I'm saying is we have adequate spectrum. So I don't think there is anything that is coming new to us. The only and the biggest overhang, like I said, which was in a vicious cycle was this AGR overhang. Now this behind us, I think the game here is now to move from survival and suspicion to strength and from the intent to really move into the impact of intent of making the meaningful constructive long-term impact. And I think that's the journey that I'm going to talk about starting now. So, for all the practical purposes, it is a reset for Vi. It is a Vi 2.0. Next three years, very, very simple, easy to understand, easy to execute, three philosophies, which we are calling it one, two, three. And these are the three things that we, as the team that you saw here and every employee of this organization is committed to deliver. These are the three key deliverables that we are looking at over the next three years, sustained customer addition, double-digit revenue growth and 3x the EBITDA in the next three years. That's a pretty large ambitious goal, and we are absolutely committed and accountable to deliver this to everybody. And the reason why we are confident is we are saying we are going to commit INR 45,000 crores of investment over the next three years in this business. And this is in addition to the INR 18,000 crores that we have already invested over the last six quarters. So, if you see over the last -- in the 4-, 4.5-year period, we would be investing more than INR 60,000 crores of investment into this business. How is this INR 45,000 crores going to convert? Very simple, pragmatic, practical approach of investing this money. This money is going to be invested in the network expansion in an extremely aggressive rollout of network. And the strategy that we have is very simple 17-5-5. 17 is 17 priority market, 5 is the 5 other markets, and the last 5 that you see is actually a 5G. And I'll start from the point number three mentioned here, which is pivoting on the 5G. We, over the next 12 to, I'll say, 30 months, will cover all the markets in the country, which is urban and urban here, I'm defining as 20,000-plus population towns with 5G. I also need to bridge the gap on a 4G. So over the next 12 to 24 months, in all the 17 priority markets, which contributes to 99.2% of my revenue, I'll have absolute parity with the competition in those markets, which gives the option and opportunity and choice to customers. And in those five markets, which I am currently invested as far as 2G is concerned, we'll make sure that all those 2G sites are converted into 4G as well as we are mindful of the fact that in those five markets, there would be a large set of customers who would be going as an inroamer. So we'll make sure that all those places are also covered as far as the 4G is concerned. So, from a network deployment point of view, there's a large amount of investment which is going to get into the network. I think the SATCOM is another part. It's still a little far in future, but I think our teams are deeply engaged in making sure that all those regulatory clearances are attained. This is going to serve us good. We have a tie-up with AST, which is providing the service. Our sense is it's still 18 months to 2 years away, but we are absolutely committed to get that into the non-terrestrial network, and that will help us to bring the network and the experience alive in the areas which we will not be present in and which is a difficult area to be. I think the last one is extremely critical, the FWA. We -- through FWA, which is on the 5G, we would definitely want to get into the SOHO and the home space, which we are not present right now. We are looking at some option and opportunity as far as the -- getting an entry into a SOHO or a small office, home office concerned or a home connected is concerned. So that's largely the network game plan that we have. To my mind, this other thing that I really want to add on the network is that our 100% of our network operation is in-sourced, unlike many of our competitors, which essentially gives us the quality and control of service, which is absolutely unparalleled. Second, we have all our SNOC, which is the network operating center. They are all latest AI-enabled, which connects right from the wireless to the fiber to the core to the transport. So state-of-the-art back-end, committed team, AI put in place wherever it is required. which is kind of give this experience of the network. My sense is that network or technology for that matter, while it is a big divider, it is also an equalizer at some place. And hence, I firmly believe that network is a hygiene and nobody knows better than us that it's a hygiene. Hence, beyond the point to keep that as a differentiation is really not the right thing to do. And hence, for us, service is going to be a big differentiator. And I'll talk a little bit about what do I mean by service. This is not only customer service. This is the service about network. This is about customer service. This is about the touch point. This is about the experience. In our business, most of the customers who connect with us connect with us with either a query or a question or an angst or a clarification. I think at that point in time, empathy is very, very important. And that's the basic of the service that we are trying to put as a framework. And I'll give you one or two examples of what we are doing right now. We call it a project Vishwas. We, as we speak, look at each and every process because the fact of the matter is that the customers are now -- lots and lots of them are digital native customers. The experience that they need is a digital experience, whereas we are not a digital bond company from that point of view. And hence, we are kind of very quickly making that shift. We are reviewing every single process and making sure that every process is relevant to the customer today. And I'll just talk of one program here that we do, which is we call interaction at 50 that -- which is called as i@50 that you mentioned that you see here. It's a very simple thing of saying, if my process is correct, as a customer, you don't need to connect with me or call me or contact me because you know exactly what you're getting, what you're paying. And hence, the target that we have taken ourselves to say my interaction at a customer level should come down by 50% in one year. We started this a couple of quarters back in April. As we speak, we have taken a target of 50%. Right now, we are at 29%. And similarly, we also say that if a customer has come to me once, then there's no need for the customer to come back to me for the same set of problem, which is what we call zero interaction complaint that I see. These are basic human intervention that we are doing. In addition to this, -- we are obviously doing a lot as far as the AI and the technology-led service differentiation is concerned, whether it is on a voice biometric, whether it is to make sure that it is a self-optimized network or it is the emotional intelligence connected with the through Gen AI into the call center. So I think there is a huge amount of work that is happening as we speak to make sure that service as a differentiator remains one of the core parts to us. Moving on, I think I spoke about the differentiated. We are known in Vi as a company which provides a lot of differentiation. Some of them is RedX for postpaid, truly unlimited, I don't know how many of you know. We are the only company who really offers truly unlimited in the international roaming. There are 40 countries where you can travel. You don't have to bother about what your data rate is going to be, what your voice rate is going to be. It is a fully unlimited pack. We also offer unlimited on the prepaid, again, the only company in India to offer that, which is a truly unlimited one. You pay X price and then entire months voice and data is there. So, the question is, we are looking at all of these as the deep research, trying to find out what the customers are saying, what is the insight and then making sure that all of these differentiation are created, which talks to customers. We also launched something called Vi Protect, whereby now we have close to a billion calls and SMSs is what we have kind of put under the suspected spam category. So I think there's a fair bit of amount of work happening as far as and on the going forward. Last part on this, rather not the last part, but I think a very, very critical part on this. I firmly believe now telecom is becoming a mature industry from a service industry point of view. And the more mature you become, the complacency is setting into the system. And with two large players playing, this complacency is a little more over-indexed. And with all of this and the network investment that we are trying to put in, I think we are absolutely at the right place to challenge the status quo with our compelling brand narrative more on the relationship rather than on the transaction. And watch this space over the next few months, you'll see a lot of action happening on the way we will connect with our current existing customers as well as intending customers as far as the brand is concerned and the brand narrative is concerned. That takes me to the last part of our strategy before I come to the employees is the enterprise segment. I think extremely important segment for us. Currently, we are catering to most of the large organizations. We divide that into three parts. We have the large corporate, then the mid-tier and then the SME and then the government. So there are four tiers. All of them are kind of catered as we speak through our dedicated team. On the product side, we distribute that into three categories, which is called connectivity, which is the basic connectivity of mobility as well as the fixed line connectivity, which every organization needs. And then the second part is on the IoT, which, again, there has different versions. Again, a data point, 70% to 80% of the cars that you see in the Indian market, which are connected car are actually supported by the connectivity that we provide. So all the car brands that you see, and this is a big business. We are one of the pioneers in this, whether it is a smart gas, smart meter, all of that comes into IoT. We have a very nice demonstration right outside this room, which actually gives you a sneak peek in what really we are doing. We have the India's only operator-led AI innovation lab in Andheri, where the big corporates come and do the lab testing on different devices. It's a very large ecosystem, which is evolving, and we are deeply invested in that. And then the last part is more on the emerging businesses, which is where the cloud services, security as a service, all of that kind of comes and sits in very nicely. So whether from the breadth of the product category is concerned or the depth of the segment and the GTM or the go-to-market is concerned, both ways, we really cut it across very well. And that brings me to the most important asset that we have. I think people are the most important asset over the last few years, what we have seen had it not been for this resilient team across the company as well as our partners, our investors, I don't think we would have been in this position. And hence, this is twofold thing. One is a gratitude. Second is absolutely a promise from all the employees and for all the employees to say, all of this needs to be done with all these employees supercharged. The way we look at this asset is we call it a 3C-TO, which is career, capability, culture, talent and ownership and performance of ownership. And that's how we drive this whole thing. It's an extremely important part of the business for us. And this is what the mantra that we live with, employee first, customer always and experience is everything, and this is what every employee in the organization is committed towards exactly for the reason that I said. And I'll now tell you why am I confident that this will be delivered and then I open the house for the question and answer. I think the worst is behind us. The AGR overhang is behind us. The journey, what has changed is the place that we stand, where we were standing four quarters back, two quarters back, two months back and where we are standing today is a very, very different place. We are a very different set of people, extremely confident of delivering what we have in mind to deliver. We know how to move this. We have done this over many, many years in different markets, and we have no doubt in our mind that we will once again do it and then let the action speak. With that, I'll leave you with the last slide, which we showed, which again is a commitment from us to all of you as well as all our employees are in it together. Thank you very much for being a patient listener. I'll now request my colleagues on the leadership team to join me on the stage, and we can open the house for any questions, clarifications, suggestions that you might have. Yes, I think Arpit is the one who is kind of anchoring this. So, you can -- yes, you can introduce yourself, Sanjesh. I might not know everybody, but yes.

So, before we start the Q&A session, I think my only request is, given we've a larger participation here, whomsoever is asking a question, limit the question to one; and obviously, you'll get more chance. Secondly, before you get into a question, just introduce yourself, so that would be helpful. Thank you.

Yes, Sanjesh.

I hope you can hear me. Yes. I'll start with congratulating very beautiful presentation, very confident. It gives a lot of confidence to us in terms of how to see Vodafone from here, Vodafone Idea from here. I got two. Two broader questions. First on the funding, second on the deployment. On the funding side, are we open or promoter willing to invest more equity? I can understand that part of it, but that again is a kind of a vicious cycle. It asks for more cash in terms of interest payment that again puts stress on us. Are we open for the equity from the promoter? Are we open for more strategic investor? What is the view in terms of the funding? So what are we looking here? Our promoter -- the most important part is that are we ready to onboard a different strategic partner apart from the existing promoter? And is equity is a serious opportunity? Are we looking up with next 12 to 18 months because that changes the equation in terms of a cash flow. That on the cash funding side. Second, on the deployment side, more on the CapEx. I do want to understand what are our priority. Are we thinking more out of the box here because, one, we are late, we need to cover a lot of ground there. And then the other thing what we have learned from the past is that we don't want to be in a game of catching the technology, right? We have seen a lot of companies in the race to catch the technology have actually fallen off. Are we thinking something out of the box going stand-alone 5G instead of trying with 5G, cutting on 4G, putting more 5G? Any breakthrough solution on the backhaul because I think that becomes a very big bottleneck for us. On that side, if you can give more color on the deployment because 45,000 absolute amount looks fantastic. But relative to the competition, the number still looks underwhelming. So just wanted to understand how are we planning to up our game with the capital, which is significantly lower than the competition and be a very relevant player in the market.

Thanks, Sanjesh, for asking that question. And I think there are a couple of questions that you asked on that. So one is on the equity part of it. Second is on the deployment. And then third is what's the differentiation going to be and what's the pace of deployment that is going to be. I think let me take the first question first. See, the way we are really looking at a current investment structure is, as we have said, we are looking at a INR 25,000 crores of bank funding and INR 10,000 crores of a nonfunded facility. See, we are at a particular level of EBITDA, which is say, INR 9,200 crores for the last year. From EBITDA to a debt ratio in an infrastructure business, anything upwards of a 3x, 3.5x also works as a ratio. Currently, we are looking at a 2.5x. At this point in time, with the investment that we have already done, I don't think we are looking at an equity at this point in time. Say, two years later, how the situation emerges is a very, very different thing, and we will probably address it at that point in time. I don't think the -- both the promoters are deeply engaged, committed into this business. As and when the need is felt, we'll take a call. Today, we are not really looking at any equity infusion right now in the business because we think that we have adequate funding through the instrument that I just spoke of to take care of the investments. Also, I said that these investments will yield a particular level of EBITDA, which then kind of takes care of both the CapEx that is required. As far as -- and then I'll request Jagbir to probably add on. See, the way we are really looking at this deployment strategy is very clearly, as I said, which is a 5G pivoted one. And I'll give you some of the numbers and the colors why we are looking at this. Today, when you look at the business, almost 40-odd percent of the subscribers are using a 5G handset, not necessarily a 5G network, but a 5G handset. In -- and this is not really concentrated in a certain geography. But we need to prioritize of where we would want to invest. That's one. Number two is when you look at the network architecture, and we are following the NSA architecture, where the back of the voice falls on to the core of the 4G. Hence, to that level, we need to have an equal distribution. when I'm saying not financial equal distribution, but the distribution in proportion, equal might not be the right way, in proportion to where we are going to invest the money as far as the 5G is concerned and the 4G is concerned. We are very clear in the 17 markets that we are present and where the priority is there, we do not have in a lot of markets, very large delta. As I showed you, some of the market delta, which was there has already been covered. So our -- these are two parallel tracks that we are looking at from a deployment point of view. And as I said, it's an extremely aggressive target that we are taking for the next 12 to 15, 18 months of doing two parallel tracks of covering the gaps where we have in these markets as far as the 4G is concerned because I can't really go and then put a 5G because it might be a little bit of a wishful thinking from that point of view. And then at the same time, the places that I have 5G, like I have already got 43 cities which are covered in 5G. We are expanding that to another 100-odd cities over the next couple of months. So that journey continues. And obviously, this with the new funding coming in, takes us into a different -- Jagbir, would you want to kind of add something on the NSA?

I think you asked the question on the SA side, for example. So first thing is whatever the architecture and the product we are deploying, yes, we allow the service NSA, but overnight, we can change to SA. So depending on the use case, right now, you can see in the market, the use case for the SA, they are not that many. As and when the use case they picked up, then within like 48 hours, 72 hours, the radio support both SA and NSA. So no issues. The software program, we can do from our network operations center or we can change it. And we are doing for the core network, we are already getting ready with all our partners. So that is on the investment fully protected, ready for the SA as and when the use case and the revenues required is available in the market. Second is the deployment should be the smart deployment. It's not like that we go everywhere. So we have to see the handset, you have to see like what kind of traffic coming in, you have to see the community of interest. You have to see many other parameters. So when Abhijit said that we had to go into the five markets, for example, we will have the all markets, but we'll go in the smart way of deploying where I deploy and immediately, I get the returns on that. Transport, we are actually like last two years, whatever deployment we are doing is all IP enabled, all routers. So we are ensuring that we are getting like good transport architecture. At the same time, we have deployed 35,000 kilometer fiber in last 18 months, 35,000 kilometer additional fiber. So we have like 350,000 kilometer fiber already. And in this plan, the way we are going, every time we are giving the good CapEx investment actually happening on the transport to ensure backhaul everything without any delay.

I'm Pranav Kshatriya from Emkay Global Securities. So my question is regarding your aspiration of 3x cash EBITDA in next three years. So if I just do like back of the envelope calculation, so if you have to increase your EBITDA by almost INR 20,000 crores, you will have to increase your revenue by around INR 29,000 crores, assuming 70% incremental EBITDA margin. And for that, you need roughly 18% revenue CAGR for next three years. If I look at even in the circles where you have invested like Maharashtra and UP, you're barely touching double digits. So what gives you the confidence to reach to 18-odd percent revenue CAGR for next three years?

Yes. So, thanks Pranav, for asking that question. I think the way we are looking at it is two, threefold. One, we are at a particular level of EBITDA that is there. Then this EBITDA has not really taken the entire yield of the INR 18,000 crores that by March that we have said that will be invested. We have invested INR 16,000 crores, another -- we've given a forward guidance any which way. This entire amount of CapEx, which is deployed is not really yielded the full result. That's point number one. Over the next three years, the CapEx of INR 18,000 crores is going to yield results. So that's point number one. Point number two is that the INR 45,000 that we are going to deploy is obviously not entire INR 45,000 is going to give us the result because some of this will be deployed in the year three, but the first two years of deployment will also start giving us the, which is what we are building as far as the subscriber and the investment is concerned. The second part is that when we start the investment, what are the things that we are not able to do today is, one, attract the customers in the population area that I'm not covered in, which will start happening. The second biggest thing for me is not really the acquisition engine. The number of customers that I acquire a month is pretty decent from the network in that area. We are in the range of 30% of a customer acquisition. Challenge for us is the retention of the customer. Now the more network that I put and the reason the customers are leaving is not for the want of a better service, which is a non-network service. It is because of the nonavailability of the experience that they are not getting. The moment I start putting the 4G, the 5G, there's no reason for me to believe that my customer retention will start kind of coming down, which all of this adds to the customers. So one is the quality of customer that I spoke of. Second is the retention of the customer that I spoke of. And then third is, obviously, as and when some of the industry changes happen, that will get baked into it. So all put together, I think we are in a -- in our mind, we are very clear that this number is an achievable number. And we have seen that happening in the past. I mean it's not that we are the only ones who are kind of looking at it. If you look at the industry over the last couple of months or years rather, you have seen a 14%, 12% CAGR, which happens for the other operators.

Yes. Fair enough. I mean just a follow-up here is I mean, one needs to have some market share gain to reach that number because, I mean, it's like are we envisaging the industry itself will grow at 18% or you think you will be able to gain some market share?

No. The way we are really looking at it is from a market share point of view is, I think, to be pragmatic and practical will be to say that we have been declining for the longest period of time rather than kind of getting into an upward sync first, I need to arrest that decline and then start to grow. So we are -- in the next three years, we are kind of building a particular ambition on the market share, but it is not very aggressive market share gain. It is our own game in the market because as you would understand, it's a INR 3 lakh crore industry. To get a 1%, the other guys don't grow. You need to grow by INR 3,000 crore alone, which -- so we are pragmatic. We've taken that practical aspect into the business in a cash flow to kind of arrive at that.

This is Arun from Avendus Spark. The INR 45,000 crores CapEx, can you just broadly give an indication how much of this will go into access network, transport, core and probably, again, split it into, say, maintenance CapEx and growth CapEx? And secondly, we have not addressed how we are going to pay off spectrum liabilities. If you can give your thoughts on how we are going to fund that payment, that will be helpful.

Okay. So I'll give you a broad sense on the CapEx on the access and the transport and core will be, I'll say, in the range of a 70-30 from a radio to a port. At a very ballpark level, obviously, it will depend as Jagbir was explaining in a different circle at a different level from a CapEx or an investment point of view because a large part of it will get into the -- where it is a 4G, there will be less of a transport, but if it is a 5G, it's more of a transport. So it kind of balances off at a 70-30 ratio. The second question you said on the spectrum. See, the way we look at the spectrum dues is over the next three years, we have a deal of INR 49,000 crores of spectrum, INR 7,000, INR 15,000 and INR 27,000. And we look at the EBITDA of 3x from now. And then the business efficiencies that is built into that. I think the way we are really looking at it is that, that takes care of the spectrum, including the CapEx that we are talking of. So that's the part of the cash flow that we are looking at. So one is my current EBITDA is INR 9,500 crores, that still takes me to INR 28,000 crores, INR 29,000 crores. And then there are business efficiency with all these investments that we are talking of and the one that we have already done, which kind of takes us to that. And then there are certain nonfinancial things, the clam part is one of them, and then there are certain other nonfinancial. So, all put together, I think we are in a comfortable position to pay up the spectrum as well as the CapEx investment through the bank funding, obviously, that we are looking at.

Right. One follow-up from the previous question that you have built in some market share gain, a reasonable market share gain on a subscriber base. What do you anticipate the competition would -- how will they react? And how are we going to counter that? Because they have a much better free cash flow as compared to you. They have a much better resource, much better distribution and operating leverage. So, how are we going to counter that reaction from them?

The way I would want to approach this question is that, yes, they probably have -- I'll not say better network, they have a wider reach network. I don't think they have a better distribution from where we are present. We are absolutely similar or better in certain markets. Otherwise, we would not have been in the position. The distribution is a game of acquisition. If you look at my acquisition, I'm fairly there as far as any competition is concerned. And that talks of the distribution, whether it is a direct or the indirect distribution. As far as the market is concerned, in this category, like I was telling, out of the 3 crore customer that gets acquired, roughly around 45% of the customers are actually the customers who are moving from one operator to the other. And this is month after month. Those are the customers, which is 45%, 47%, customers are not considering me today because probably I have an inconsistent CapEx, hence, I had not deployed, hence, my experience was not there and so on and so forth. And these are the trends that we are seeing over the period of time. Just to give you one data point, four or five quarters back, whatever I was acquiring, I was getting 19% to 20% of my acquisition from the competition. Today, that number still stands at 43%, which means I'm able to attract customers in the market that I'm investing. And that will continue because right now, I'm not in that consideration set for those set of customers. And one, like you just saw, I have increased my coverage by 100 million from a population point of view. Those 100 million guys were not even considering me for the longest period of time. Those are the guys who will now start. It's not that all of them will come to me, but at least they'll start considering. So I think those are the basics that we are building on. And as I said, my distribution is a strength. And hence, we'll play on the strength that is there. I don't want to comment on what competition will do. I mean, obviously, they have a job to do. They will do what they think is right.

This is Sumangal from Kotak Securities. Firstly, thanks for hosting this and inviting us. My first question is on the AGR reassessment. One is, do we have any broad sense of the time line when we are engaging with the government? I know it's a problem 10 years down the line, but still, number one. Number two, are we also pleading with respect to some moratorium on the spectrum liabilities or some deferment there? Next, on the INR 45,000 crores CapEx, if you could share over the next three years, what sort of time line -- what sort of ramp-up of spends we are looking each year, the schedule of that, maybe an annual basis? And how much of that is dependent on the INR 25,000 crores of debt, which we are looking to raise and also the time line? And just lastly, on the INR 30,000 crores of EBITDA -- cash EBITDA target, I believe it is FY '29, which we are looking at. So, in that assumption, in your calculations, can you share what is the assumptions for ARPU and subscribers, the breakup, a broad range also would be fine.

Okay. So, let me recollect the question that you asked. So AGR spectrum subscriber and breakup of this funding -- phasing of the funding. Okay. So, let me take the AGR first. So I think we are very thankful to the Government of India as well as the Honorable Supreme Court for taking a very decisive conclusive stance. As far as the reassessment is concerned, as I said, the reassessment has started. It's in full swing, I will say. The speed is very good. It's very encouraging. We are deeply engaged at different levels because all of these reassessment happens at different places. I would really not want to put a time line to that or a quantum of what will happen. But we are extremely confident because we know what we are representing. We have all the documents. We have all the proofs of what we are trying to reassess or get reassessed at. So we are extremely hopeful that whatever the outcome is, is going to be good for us. And as and when it happens, we'll definitely come back and share about that. As far as any moratorium of spectrum is concerned, I don't think we ever were representing that, neither are we doing it today. That's part of the cash flow that we have baked in, and we will be paying through our cash flow on the spectrum. So we are not really talking to the government on the spectrum moratorium or any kind of a relief on this. The third question was on the phasing of the CapEx of INR 45,000 crores. I mean, at a very broad level, I'll say it will be more skewed in the first two years and then kind of the third year because that's how we will want to phase so that we are able to get the return faster. So that's the reason I was very careful when I was saying I'll deploy my 4G 17 priority markets in 12 to 24 months. When I said 5G, I said 12 to 13 months. So we've kind of decided in our mind of how do we want to phase it. And also, see, let's also understand and be practical about it. It's not a question of only the money that is available or not available. It's also a question of Jagbir's team the ability to go and execute. I don't want to kind of get into a situation where we commit something and we are not able to execute. So we are looking at an extremely aggressive deployment target, I would say, which is in the ground because this is also capital and labor-intensive work to do. So we are being absolutely conscious of that fact as well. So if I answered all your question or something is left? Okay. Split of EBITDA growth into ARPU and customers at a very broad level, I would say 60-40, 60 in favor of customers, 40 would be ARPU. ARPU will obviously have a component of an upgrade as well as if and when something happens in the industry on the price. We have always said that industry needs a price correction. So we've kind of built on that. But I think larger focus is on customer and our own customers mix changing. As I keep saying, we have a significant amount of customers who are sitting in 2G, which needs to -- as and when I put the 4G or the 5G, those are the guys who are kind of moving into a different category, I need to move there. Second is a category where I have a large number of customers who have a data-enabled handset, but they are on the voice product. So that's another big category for me to move. And the delta between them as an ARPU is anything between INR 80 to INR 100. So I think those are the immediate things that we are really looking at when we put the investment and start to kind of get the return. Sorry, you are pointing for asking a question.

Deepti, from CLSA. Thank you for the presentation. And you mentioned of the targets that you have, 40% is likely to come from ARPU gain. But if we look at the last few years, the sector has gained from three successive tariff hikes. The double-digit growth, nearly double of this was attributable to the ARPU growth. So, in your target to double or triple EBITDA or double-digit revenue growth, what if the tariff hikes are delayed? Do you believe 60% subscriber growth can come without a market share gain and this kind of target can be met without tariff hikes?

No. So, tariff hike, as I said, and you know it better. In the last six years, if you see, there have been four structural tariff hikes, okay? Every single tariff hike has ranged from 15% to even 100%. FY '21 was 100% tariff when it was 99% becoming 199%. The last one, which is July '24, was 20%, it was 15% as a residual. So it ranges from whatever percentage. So that's one part of it. And we are not saying that it's going to happen tomorrow or not. But yes, we feel that the industry needs to take a call on the correction of the tariff. So that's one part of it. Second part of it is to say that when I'm looking at a 60% of this coming from the growth on the subscriber, obviously, it's the customers who I need to acquire, which I'm not able to -- and I can't really go and put the entire onus on to the ARPU is. When I'm saying ARPU, I'm saying I'm just delinking the upgrade and the price separately because the upgrade is in my hand because that's the customer that belongs to me, and I can upgrade that either from a 2G to a 4G or to a 5G or from an unlimited voice to unlimited data. And those are two large opportunity that I see because the mix of the base. And one of the reasons why my ARPU is less is exactly this. Otherwise, my ARPU for an unlimited data customer is very similar to what the industry ARPU is. But the mix is skewed towards a non-smartphone or a non-data customer, which is where it kind of comes down.

So as you target to take 5G to 100 cities, do you have a target for the 5G traffic? Because for the leader, 5G is already accounting for 50% of their traffic. And only when the traffic upgrades to 5G, is there an uplift in ARPU without an explicit tariff hike?

Yes. So see, we have -- as we speak, we were in 29 cities till very recently. We've gone to 43 cities in the last one quarter. In the 29 city, which includes Bombay, Delhi, other places, I think we see a pretty significant amount of traffic, which is actually accruing on the 5G. Now a lot of these traffic, and Jagbir, can add on this, also accrues on to a 5G because it's an offload strategy, where you need a 4G and a strategy to put a site to take the traffic of a 4G, had 4G been the only option. You would have put a 4G or a layer. But since you have a 5G, you're putting a site of a 5G and you're offloading a 4G on that. So it might not be a direct correlation of saying that what's the traffic on a 5G and hence, all of them kind of gets converted into a revenue for a 5G. So it's a little bit of a mixed bag as far as -- so it's not a straight-line transaction to say if the traffic on the 5G goes up, your revenue is going to go up.

Maybe I'll rephrase my -- part one of my question. Considering it takes two to three quarters for tariff hikes to flow through, what if the tariff hikes are delayed and also this upgrade is a lot more gradual, considering that competition is also investing so aggressively in 5G. Is there going to be a sort of reassessment of the target on double-digit revenue growth and 3x of EBITDA in that scenario?

I'll say double-digit revenue, we would do. That's the way we are looking at it. 3x EBITDA, probably a little marginally here or there is the way I would really look at it.

Okay. And one question for Tejas. So there's a 10% difference between the AGR INR 877 billion at which it has been frozen versus what's booked in the accounts for your balance sheet. And also, the frozen amount is nearly $10 billion. To what extent is the reassessment likely to bring relief, at least a broad range? What kind of relief could one expect?

Sure. Thanks. I think on the first question, on the balance sheet, we have got about INR 80,000 crores. And the balancing difference between that INR 87,000 crores and INR 80,000 crores sitting contingent liability. So it is there in the disclosure already. So that makes up the INR 80,000 crores plus the INR 7,000 crores. So that comes to the INR 87,000 crores. To the question of where we think this INR 80,000 crores could go down to, I think Abhijit has mentioned, too premature for us to say anything. We have the documents. The speed is ongoing, but it will be premature to say a number at this point of time. Abhijit, do you want to add anything?

No.

This is Namit Arora from IndGrowth. Thank you for putting this together and having the entire senior leadership team here. I have a couple of questions. One is on technology. The industry is prone to a lot of disruption. So if you could give us some color on internal investments for innovation to keep abreast of technology trends and also internal investments to deliver any efficiencies on the cost structure, if that's possible. So my question is both market-facing and internal, but just your focus on technology internally.

Okay. So when you ask of the technology internal, it is more to do with automation and AI other than the infrastructure that we are putting. As I said in my presentation, and Jagbir can add on to that, the way we really look at the AI intervention is in twofold. One is on the cost reduction and which includes the efficiency and then is on the revenue. In the technology side, when I look at the AI, it is primarily on the cost part of it. One of the examples that I can cite is which we have started to kind of pilot as we speak, is to look at the AI deployment onto a site to say what's the kind of power consumption that is happening? And then how do you really, on an auto mode, self-optimize the site of not really throwing that kind of a power because your traffic is not there at that point in time. And hence, what is the kind of cost reduction that can happen. I think that's just one example to say. There are many more examples on similar lines as far as the technology is concerned. To put an amount would be difficult at this point in time to say what part of the amount will go. But yes, you're right. The way forward on the technology from an internal point of view is absolutely to look at the efficiency and the efficiency on the automation and AI. And we are absolutely committed on that because that's how -- so when I'm talking of an EBITDA, I'm also talking of the efficiencies that we are building in on the network OpEx because if you really see the INR 45,000 crores of CapEx going, really takes my network OpEx in a very different trajectory. So some of these are absolutely baked in as far as our EBITDA is concerned. Do you want to add something on the AI?

So, I think, if I can give you some concrete examples. So one is the cost side, using the AI to reduce the cost, improve the productivity. So you can take like all the operation management of the network side as well as the IT side. Rather than the people doing all kind of job right from the -- we call it L1 level to L4 level, eliminate the people and the cost actually, which machine can do it, let machine do it. So we have implemented a lot of use cases in the -- our network operations center in Pune and in IT operations. So we are actually replacing the people with the machines. You do the more accurately, more efficient, less cost, and this is not talk. It's already implemented. And of course, it's like an ongoing process. It cannot be like only one time. Same thing, we are just seeing where we can improve the productivity could be in supply chain, could be in finance, could be in shared services. So wherever there's a benefit of the using AI to reduce the cost, we have actually taken this last 1 year, the charter to improve the productivity, reduce the cost, use the AI as much as possible. Other side, towards the revenue enhancement side, I think we are working right now on the churn management, et cetera. Also, we are seeing how AI can analyze the vast of data and can give us the real-time outcome. So this is one. Second is what Abhijit was saying in terms of innovation, your question was. See, in telco world, there's a big cost on the energy. So we are doing the energy savings, whether we do through the self-optimizing network or we do the AI-led energy savings. So that is one part. Second part, we are also doing actually on the network side to do the interference management to create the more capacity from the same infrastructure and the assets. Third, we are also doing that when we deploy the network, we do the planning in such a way I deploy the investment and balance the investment between the 4G and 5G where we need the smart way of deployment and it's more of the long term rather than looking for the short term. So, I think, many ways the AI is helping us and I'm sure helping industry, but we are adopting AI very aggressively to just see wherever we can optimize the cost, that is the first priority for us.

That's very helpful. I just have two quick questions for Abhijit. One is on internal morale, people morale and generally within the organization, attrition, churn of people and your ability to attract top quality talent. And secondly, if you could just spend a couple of minutes on branding and marketing because several participants before also talked of market share gains if you are putting some renewed focus on marketing and branding, et cetera?

Yes. So, you picked up on the favorite thing of mine, which is the employee. And that's the reason we say that employee first and customer always. And there's a live event happening. In fact, we have extended this link to all the employees, and many of them would be actually watching us live. I think the way it starts for us is being authentic and being transparent. And we genuinely believe in it. We don't only talk of the 3C-TO, which is the culture, the career and the capability. We genuinely put in a lot of effort, and Guru can talk about it a little bit on saying because this industry is really changing and changing very fast, especially in the case of enterprise, I think the capability investment of our employees is extremely important for them to keep pace with what's really happening in this industry. Otherwise, your customers will know more than what you know, and that's not a really great place to be in. So that's one of the focus area. And I think from an employee morale point of view, the way we have held our team together with one of the lowest attrition, I would say, in the industry for the long period of time, making sure that every information reaches them directly like this one. I do something called a focus of the month. I've been doing it for the last 44 months every month, month-on-month, where we talk of exactly what is happening in our lives so that they know and they hear from me rather than from anybody else. So that's how we are building that confidence, and I'm absolutely confident of our employees of where they stand and what they need to do. And also not only that, I mean, I'm also cognizant of the fact that the culture of ownership and performance needs to be driven. At this point of time, where we stand today, we need entrepreneurs. We need ownership in the employee fraternity rather than just being an employee. And that's how we drive that agenda very, very rigorously. Do you want to add something on employee?

Thank you for asking that question. Let me give you some data points, which kind of will be an evidence of the question that you asked. Let's take the ultimate measure of employee morale attrition. FY '24, we were 16.8%. FY '25, we were 16.5%, lower than competition. YTD FY '26, we are 14.2%. So actually, good news travels and everybody experiences it in a certain way, and that is directly translating into a fall in attrition or increase in retention. If I cut this in a slightly different way, the average tenure of the top band in the company is 12 years, which means top leadership has stuck around. The average tenure of the band right next to it is also about 11.8%, 11.9%, which kind of indirectly tells you that people who are movers and shakers really are quite embedded and quite invested in the success and future of the organization. The third dimension at which I would like to talk about is where does morale come from? One is, of course, it comes from a rosy view of the future, but it also comes from their experience of how much the organization is investing in them. And if, let's say, the number of learning hours is any barometer of how much investment we make despite what we have gone through, it's up by about 30% in the last two years. It's up by about 45% over the last two years. So, I think all in all, whichever you cut your question, the real indicators are quite healthy and becoming even stronger with time.

And Abhijit, if you could just spend one minute on my last question, which was on branding and marketing, any efforts on that?

Sorry, I...

Branding and marketing, any enhanced effort.

Okay, branding and marketing, I think Avneesh is here. But as I said, we have a brand which is really a loved brand. It's an amalgamation of two real loved brands earlier, which is now converging into Vi. We feel that the story is incomplete. And let me confess that, that we need to do a little bit of work there. And that's the reason I kind of left it incomplete because I want a right time to unveil some of that. So there's some work happening. As I said, watch for the space, and we'll come back on what we are going to do. But we are absolutely cognizant of the fact that we need to have a very compelling narrative, which I'm not talking of it right now, but we know exactly what we are doing. You want to add something or...

No, I think two parts to this. One is I think we do recognize the fact that we need to drive revaluation as far as the brand is concerned, right? If you're looking to bring in incremental consumers, we will need to do that. And I think as the market matures, brands do tend to get commoditized, and I think that opens up an opportunity from our standpoint to drive ourselves from a differentiation point of view and therefore, drive valuation. So without letting on more, I think just watch this space, we will get a lot more salient. We will increase our share of voice and you should be hearing a lot more from us in the coming months.

First of all, sincere thanks from all of us for all of you being present here and doing this meeting after a long gap. So, I have three parts. One is the overall mathematics, if I look, INR 49,000 crores of a spectrum payment over the next three years. INR 45,000 crores of CapEx. That's INR 94,000 crores. So I'm assuming some payable and contingent liability will be there of the past. So let's say roughly INR 1 lakh crores to be invested over next three years. So -- and you said you will take INR 35,000 crores of debt.

INR 2,500 crores funded, INR 10,000 crores...

So I'm assuming that INR 10,000 crores unfunded -- INR 35,000 crores. So INR 65,000 crores essentially will come from internal accruals over the next three years?

Primarily, yes. Yes. I mean, yes.

I'm just taking Q from Deepti's point. If there is a shortfall, let's say, for whatever reason, business is business, if there is a shortfall in EBITDA number, then will it be a call on the promoters for additional equity or it will be a call on shareholders?

Okay. I did not introduce the promoters sitting here in the room. And...

[ Sushil bhai ] can possibly address this.

Sushil, do you want to come here because then probably...

So, thanks [ Madhu ]. And I think this is a very, very relevant question. I think a couple of points you have to kind of keep in mind. One, as a promoter, we have stood by this company all throughout. Otherwise, you would not be standing in front of you.

That's a brilliantly handled. This will be a case study in Harvard.

No, no, absolutely. And I did mention to many people that this company would be a case study at Harvard. I would also say that Mr. Birla, particularly, especially in this company, he's the largest investor across the group, what he has done for this company. So I think you have to see this question in a context. He has always remained positive and he has invested when there was a need. And tomorrow, theoretically, if there is a need, I don't think promoters will run away and will not take care of the company. So I think you have to see this question in a slightly different context. And...

Sushil bhai [Foreign Language] If there is a need for equity, the promoters will come before it goes to the larger shareholders.

So, Madhu bhai, as you know that we have invested INR 27,000 crores in the last few years. So that stands -- that itself gives a message that if there is a need, I think promoters always have remained confident they have invested, and they would make sure that if there is a need, they support that company.

And apart from the INR 49,000 crore spectrum, which is being paid out, how much more liability is left after this?

[Foreign Language] One more point. Actually, as you know, the equity is always the costliest form of...

Absolutely. 100% at this price, it is very, very expensive.

So, I think, we'll keep that in mind actually.

So, just to answer your question, so as we speak, as I said, we have cleared all the debt. The debt -- the bank debt that is there is under INR 1,000 crores now, okay? And so there's no other liability at all. Rather on the contrary, there is some money that we can recover on the clam that I talked of and on some of the income tax rate.

I was talking about the spectrum liability.

There's no other spectrum.

This is the INR 49,000 crore figure is the total?

Is the total. Yes, INR 7,000 crore, INR 15,000 crore and INR 27,000 crore...

Sorry for this ignorant question. Are we paying interest on this spectrum? Or this is a total is...

We are paying on time. Yes.

These are total payment including the interest.

Yes.

Including the interest. Right.

Yes.

And my last question is, of course, both the competitors are very, very strong. In your understanding, what are you calculating their response to be to this aggressive comeback of Vi?

I think they should welcome us with open arms. They have been having a duopoly. We are a very formidable, strong promoter-backed organization with extremely good, excellent execution capability, which was only not able to perform because of the AGR overhang. I think once that part is behind us, which is behind us, I think it's a three-player market. India is a large market. I don't see that they should be worried from that point of view. But yes, but we are absolutely in the market to give them a tough competition.

You alluded to about 45%, if the number is correct, of the people who are churning between one operator to another, almost regularly, you kind of suggested that it is a pattern. Can you throw some light as to why this is happening? Because your whole strategy on acquiring more customers seems to be -- this seems to be a foundational part to it.

Okay. No. So let me break that into two parts. So the number is right. So out of the total number that is acquired in an industry in a month, 45% of them move into two operators. Till now, they were primarily moving between the two operators because some part of the market we were not present in. And that's the market that we definitely want to participate in. The reason why they move multiple reasons, could be challenge on the network, could be challenge on the service, could be challenge on the offering that they are getting because these are the markets. So we call them a category, which is a rotational churn customers who are more value seekers and kind of move every month. And that's a large part of the segment. But our strategy is not only dependent on the guys who are moving. We are also looking at a category which is other than this. Like I said, we are currently at a 43% at best, I'll go to a 50%, which is an increase of 7%, 8% on that. But the 50% of the market, which is a new in the category is also what we are looking at. So we are not over-indexed as far as only this category of a customer is concerned. But yes, that's a market reality as well that that's the kind of customer that is rotating within the operators.

Yes. Kunal from BNP Paribas. So, again, coming back to the EBITDA question. So like as you look to triple the EBITDA over the next 3 years, what's the tariff hike which you think is required to really get there? And what do you think will be the industry subscriber growth over the next two, three years? And on the cost side, like what's the. Potential? What's the plan for the weaker circles? Is there a potential to -- or who do you look to exit considering that those will be loss-making circles? And on churn, the 4% monthly churn, where do you think it stabilizes? Again, it's a big cost which you are incurring?

Okay. So, first question you asked was on the EBITDA. See, it's -- any pricing intervention, we believe, is a call of a leader, not a call of a challenger. We have always maintained that the industry needs a price repair. Everybody says that. We'll wait for the leaders to take a call on that, and then we will evaluate what do we want to do with that. So that's on the pricing. I'm not very sure what quantum of price will increase or not increase. So that's on the pricing part of it. The second question was on?

Subscribers? I mean...

We are not planning any circle to be shut down at all. Rather, we are wanting it to strengthen them for the simple reason that the customers who are going in from a 17 market to those markets, they should be able to experience a similar network experience and service experience because we have seen over the period of time that if you do not have your network availability, we can't go and cover everywhere. But at least the places that I have a 2G site, which is a pretty decent amount of coverage, at least we make them a 4G as well as we cover all the areas which is of public interest, which is a station, airport, religious spaces, public interest spaces so that we are present in that area. So we are not having any plans to exit. As far as the cost is concerned, we have our own plans on large cost on this is a network cost. And when we look at the EBITDA, we also look at our overall EBITDA from a country point of view, not really while we look at a circle level as well. But I think from a strategic point of view, we need to have a little holistic view as far as the EBITDA is concerned.

And also if you can comment on your plans for enterprise as well as maybe postpaid, how do you see postpaid? I mean, have you been losing customers there? Do you think like you can have a stronger pitch towards them now? And also FWA, what's the plan? I mean, like say, other players have invested aggressively there. What's your strategy there?

So, I think postpaid, let me pick up postpaid and then Arvind, I'll request you to add on the enterprise part of it. Postpaid is, I'll say, is a turnaround business for us. over the last two years, we have really seen a significant amount of turnaround as far as the postpaid business is concerned. One, because we have opened the touch point. The postpaid customer still is a discerning customer who needs a little touch and a fee. If you saw the slides, we have in the country 2,641 exclusive stores in 664 cities. We have deployed 370-odd stores in the last probably two quarters. So, I think, there's a fair amount of work happening as far as the touch points are concerned. We are also available digitally. And we have an unparalleled value proposition, whether it is in shape and form of family or in shape and form of the RedX that we offer, where there are unique benefits that we offer. And as I said, that business is absolutely in the positive territory. We don't see whether it is on the revenue, whether it is on the net adds. On the enterprise, I'll request Arvind to kind of add a flavor. It's been a critical part of our journey, and we are working pretty diligently on that.

Thank you. So, on enterprise, basically, as Abhijit mentioned earlier, we operate across customer segments, whether it's the large hyperscalers, large banks to even the digital start-ups. It's a business of a portfolio of sub-businesses, whether it is core connectivity. Some segments are mid-single-digit growth categories, whereas some segments are very high 20% plus categories, and we are operating across all segments. So we have a very clear focus on how do we make ourselves more relevant. And I think some of the last two years of quarterly earnings call also, we've given updates on whether, as an example, being the innovator and launching the rich business messaging in partnership with Google in India. We were the first to have launched that. whether creating new products in terms of fixed line with hybrid SD-WAN with world-class partners like Fortinet and Cisco. So, how do we modernize our product portfolio? And we've had a rich history and DNA of enterprise relationship building. We have dedicated customer account directors with deep experience. So a mix of operating across customer segments, modernizing our product portfolio and increasing our TAM in some of the higher growth, what we call emerging business or next-gen services. These are the three pillars on which we have actually seen very strong momentum already in the enterprise business over the last four, five quarters. And of course, the next two or three quarters, we have very strong clear plans to take it forward.

Yes. Sanjesh here. So, I think, for all this plan to come around, I think revenue is the key. point. So just wanted to understand on the four key factors of the revenue, how do you think each of the factor will play out over the next three years? First is subscriber. Industry is growing at 2.5%. We have been declining. Now the ambition is to grow faster than the industry for the revenue to be achieved. The second is premiumization, 2G to 4G, 4G to 5G, how it translates into revenue. Now again, we have seen historically the subscriber when they were upgrading for 2G to 4G, a lot of them have moved out of the network in the want of a better quality customer. How are we going to stop that, feed that and probably grow faster than the subscriber growth? That's number two. Number three is tariff hike. Now if we go historically, the translation of tariff hike into revenue has been pretty weak for us, right? Negative to at best case, 20%, 25%. Now how are we changing that? How are we working on translating the revenue -- sorry, tariff hike to revenue. That's the third part. And fourth part, obviously, enterprise, what kind of contribution you see and how does it all work out to reaching that 17%, 18% kind of a revenue CAGR. If you can touch on all these 4 points, probably that will give us more clarity in terms of how to think about the revenue for VI.

Okay. So I'll take the subs question and the tariff question and then premiumization, I'll request Avneesh to answer and then Arvind can talk on the enterprise part. See, when we look at the subs, obviously, a large part of our action is very clearly from -- coming from the fact of the places that we are investing and we will invest. And yes, the answer is that we need to grow faster than the industry, and that's what the aim is. Second point is, let's also understand when you say 2% of the industry growth from a customer's point of view is another challenge of the industry where the two players were investing. But since we were losing subscribers, the entire growth for them for the subs came from us. And that's the job that we are kind of going to do on expanding to the question that sir was asking here on saying that how do I really participate in the area where -- which is the MNP area as well as the outside area. So, yes, the answer is that we are looking at an aggressive growth as far as the customers are concerned. On the second question on the price, I think if you cut that price over the last four or six years, the 4x the price has changed, every single time, the ARPU gain that we have got is very similar to what other guys have got. And every time we have got a customer loss, which is far significant, which effectively takes my revenue down. And that's the point I was making that we probably did the price up without the network experience being there. After that price, we have already invested INR 16,000 crores. As and when the price up happens, there will be a significant amount of CapEx of INR 45,000 crores, which would have gone. The 5G would have come, the capacity you've seen 117,000 broadband sites we've added. All of this actually adds to the experience. And hence, there is no reason if the other two operators are adding on to the ARPU and not really losing subscriber, effectively giving the return on the revenue, there's no reason for me to then kind of lose on the subscriber. And hence, we are very pragmatic, and that's the reason I said that as and when the price change happens, we'll evaluate and see where do we need to make that effective. You want to add something on the premiumization?

So, I think, two or three things. One is I think you need to recognize even today, there's a pretty significant gap between our ARPU and our competitor ARPU. And I mean, while I'm not taking names, I hope you understand the competitor I'm alluding to. So, eventually, as the mix changes, we fundamentally have a fairly large trajectory available to us in terms of headroom as far as the ARPU growth is concerned, whether it is in terms of -- today, we have -- like Abhijit has been saying a significant proportion of, let's say, 2G customers, which are low ARPU customers. We also have a larger proportion of what I called second SIM customers, right? Eventually, at the end of the day, as the network experience consolidates, a lot of that second SIM starts converting into the primary SIM. So -- while subscriber growth is going to be important, and we are obviously, like he spoke about the fact that the -- as far as our mix is concerned, 60% is built on subscriber, the 40%. And I think the lady asked the question saying what happens if that mix doesn't translate. We fundamentally believe there is enough and more headroom and opportunity available in terms of premiumization to be able to upscale the ARPU, which is what we've been doing despite having no price repair in the last four quarters. I think like you said, the ability to be able to hold on consumers with price increase, we obviously feel a lot more confident now given the fact that the network repair is happening, we're consolidating the experience. So, therefore, we will be able to build a lot of that price increase into our revenue growth. as we move forward. I think postpaid is fundamentally a very, very strong story for us. We're coming back very, very strongly as far as postpaid is concerned. I think what we need to recognize for us, postpaid is largely a top 20 city story, where fundamentally the experience, both in terms of the retail experience in terms of the front-facing consumer-facing assets that we offer as well as the experience where we're starting to build out the 5G network, we're starting to see pretty significant gains as far as premiumization is concerned and therefore, the ARPU mix. Also with a lot of the propositions that we've introduced, whether it's the Super Hero, Non Stop Hero, we are seeing a large proportion of our base starting to move to these propositions, where we're getting pretty significant ARPU uptake. So, I think, we are pretty confident as we move in the journey, the premiumization is here to stay, and that will continue to build our ARPU as we move forward because there is enough and more headroom relative to where we stand vis-a-vis our competitors in the market today.

Yes. And just to add a bit on the enterprise side, I think the way we look at it, fundamentally, there is -- we have to protect and grow the core, which is slightly more steady, predictable, strong margin-accretive part of our cash flow and then start aggressively moving into increased TAM and other value pools. As an example, the IoT space and the whole smart meter digital India vision, we are talking of almost a TAM of 200 million to 220 million households, which will get into this bandwagon in the next three, four years. We have publicly announced already partnerships and MOUs that we have in our order book of 12 million, and we are actively in a situation where possibly in the next two or three months, we will be able to announce figures even higher than that. So that is the kind of TAM increase from other industry pools that will happen from the new businesses. So both the core and the new areas of business have the headway and the space for us to grow meaningfully.

Sir, just in terms of a time check, if you can just take the last question for today.

This is Aditya Suresh from Macquarie. I'm right here in the back. Just two questions. So first is in terms of just going back to your slides, you showed some stuff on Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh. Can you disaggregate that impact of value versus volume, some of the gains you saw as you invested in those markets?

So, two parts. If you notice that in Maharashtra, it is a gain on both the value and the volume, and that's where I said that we have added or started to add customers quarter 2 onwards. And obviously, there is an impact on the upgrade that Avneesh was explaining. Whereas in case of UP, we have still not got into the positive territory where we have arrested the decline that was happening. So there, it is more a value game where we have been able to upgrade more customers, not really add customers to get that game. That's the simple way of really understanding the UP and Maharashtra. And this will be very different for different places depending upon the place and stage of life that the circles are in.

And the second clarification was in terms of your subscriber aspirations, is there any inorganic consolidation impact to think about, whether it be BSNL or any of the other government entities? Or is it all organic Vodafone idea?

No, no, it's all organic. There is no consolidation or if you are hinting towards any kind of a merger or any kind of thing? No. It's all organic going into the market, sweating it out, executing and getting the business out of the network that we put.

And as you kind of execute this in three years' time, do you have any target of what this could mean for your net debt to EBITDA on an overall consolidated basis?

Net add to EBITDA?

Net debt add.

You want to take that? Net debt will be INR 25,000 crores. I actually pointed...

Partly actually covered it. So actually if we look at our external debt today is fairly low with the INR 25,000 crores that Abhijit spoke about, even at today's ratio, we are at 1 to 2.5. And as we grow our EBITDA, that will be substantially lower than that. So we are looking at that range as we speak. Even if we include the nonfunded, we are at 1 is to 3.5 at today's EBITDA, which again should grow as we look at the ambition in the future.

Would you include spectrum and AGR liabilities as well because these are effectively interest bearing?

I think the way to look at spectrum would be to look at whether we are able to fulfill from a cash flow point of view and I think that Abhijit has given confidence. And the reason, in a way not to look at debt is the spectrum is over a significant 20-year period. This installment is due till 2024. So I think as I look at net debt-to-EBITDA to generate revenue and grow for the next two, three years, I'll focus on external debt while not losing the eye on ability to pay the spectrum, which we shared again earlier as well.

Thank you. Okay. I think there's a last question here, and then we wrap up. And we are anyway here so we can have the conversations going on.

Sorry to persist on the revenue, double-digit revenue growth target. The competitor has a 5G SA network. Competitor has 20% lower tariff. So while I agree with the team on the postpaid side of Vodafone being able to attract more postpaid subscribers, but how would larger subscriber gains come through? Because a peer does have 20% lower tariffs on 5G.

No, sorry, I don't think they have a 20% lower tariff now.

Yes, But I mean there is a broad range of that. But 15% to 20% and there are no tariff...

Yes. Now if you see the entry-level prices changed for them as well. So I don't think that holds. Also, one of the competition has an SA. The other has an NSA.

But that competition has gained a lot more postpaid subscribers even from Vodafone Idea. So the point is larger subscriber gains, would it be possible with one peer having lower tariffs and one peer being quite aggressive at ground on attracting postpaid? And the second part to this is would -- if the peers don't increase rates, would Vodafone Idea be willing to take tariff hikes?

So that, I think the second part of the question I answered saying that the tariff increase in a manner is a call of a leader, not really a challenger at this point in time. So that's the...

Starting 2019, Vodafone Idea took the tariff hike lead, if I recall correctly.

2019 was right after the merger, which was probably we were the largest player after the merger. So I don't think we are looking at a tariff's hike on our own. It depends on how the things...

And then the last question from me on this whole spectrum repayment is taken care of for three years. But thereafter, there's still a very large liability. And if government does convert, depending on the price, they could end up being 80% or more. So how do promoters see this pattern where they go up from 49% to maybe above 80% and yet we are in a point where maybe even spectrum renewals will be coming up.

This was -- I think the related question. So this I asked before. And sorry for this repeating again. So what I heard was the total spectrum payment due as of now is only INR 49,000 crores.

For the next three years.

Next three years.

Yes.

So that's why I asked what is the remaining -- after three years, how much is more remaining is spectrum payment?

Okay. Then, I mean, that -- every year, it is different for the next three -- after the FY '29 is another INR 77 crore, '27 for another two years, then it starts coming down because depending upon how the spectrum holding pattern is. Overall, it's INR 120,000 crores over the next 20 years...

So, INR 120,000 crores minus INR 50,000 crores for the next three years.

Till 2044.

Till 2044.

Whatever. So the total repayment after we pay this INR 50,000 crores will be roughly INR 70,000 crores to be paid over the next 16 years, right?

Not 16 years, 20 years.

But three years has passed. I'm assuming...

From '29, yes. From '29.

And maybe I just want to clarify that government, I don't think will increase their ownership beyond 49%. So I don't think we should assume that they'll go 80% or 75%. I think what they have cabinet earlier when they had approved this 49%, there is a clause which suggests that in case company raises more equity capital and government drops from 49% to whatever percentage depending on what company has raised, they reserve a right for further converting obligations into equity up to 49%. So that's the way you should read.

Just on this related thing, [Foreign Language] does it include the interest payment? This is in-built. So there is no over and above interest.

No, no, absolutely.

So total liability is INR 1,20,000 crores spread over the next 20 years.

That's right.

Over the next three years, INR 49,000 crores to be paid. And for the remaining next 16 years, another INR 70,000 crores to be paid.

Provided we don't renew some of the spectrum, which will come.

Yes, that is a different issue.

Yes, that is a different issue. That is different. Yes, absolutely correct to understand. Okay. I think we are all here. We'll kind of meet all of you one-on-one. Thank you all for coming in and spending time. It means a lot to us. I think we've kind of just come out of the phase of the largest overhang, and we as a team are kind of standing here, committing ourselves to the target that we have taken. Thank you all for joining in and we'll join you. Thank you enjoin.