Indus Towers pins hopes on 5G, data usage, Africa and UAE expansion

New Delhi: Passive infrastructure provider Indus Tower’s future revenue will be driven by continued 5G expansion, data usage growth, and global expansion in Africa and UAE, the management said. Indus executives said at an earnings call Wednesday the financial friction regarding customer payments have stabilised. The company confirmed it has no overdue receivables from Vodafone Idea, one of its major customers, and payments are flowing business as usual according to the credit period offered to the telco. In fact, Indus has seen a healthy pickup in tenancy additions from Vodafone Idea.

“(A) Major customer has seen acceleration in network expansion and we are able to capture a large share of its rollouts. Our long-standing relationship by working closely with the customers in their journey of evolving network priorities and longterm deployment plans enables us to garner a larger share of the transition of portfolio as well,” said Prachur Sah, CEO, Indus Towers.

Sah said the recent government relief regarding Vodafone Idea’s dues on adjusted-gross-revenues are expected to bring financial stability to the telco, enabling them to sustain investments in network expansion.


Indus said the industry has so far rolled out around 520,000 5G base stations. While the pace of incremental 5G rollouts have moderated, the focus has shifted to densification, which continues to drive loading revenues for the tower company.

Currently, operators are adding 5G layers to existing sites rather than building standalone 5G sites. Indus management noted that different operators are at different stages of penetration, and 100% coverage on existing sites is not yet achieved, leaving future headroom for further growth.

Future tower growth is further expected to be driven by increasing data consumption. 5G usage grew 15% sequentially in the December 2025 quarter, accounting for 35% of total data traffic, up from 32% in the June quarter.

Indus said 5G subscriptions in India are projected to cross the 1 billion mark by 2031, accounting for 79% of total mobile subscriptions. As data intensity increases, this will eventually lead to capacity augmentation and new tower additions.

Indus said quarter’s performance was masked by base effect arising from significant write-backs the company made in Q3 FY25 against past dues cleared by Vodafone Idea, one of Indus’ major customers. Adjust for these one-off gains, underlying business showed double-digit growth