Drive towards data will bring lot of opportunities: Voda’s Sunil Sood

Vodafone India, the country’s second-largest telecom service provider, expects data to bring in huge opportunities in future, despite the fact that data rates have slumped, chief executive Sunil Sood said, adding that he expects the telco’s merger with Idea Cellular to be wrapped up very soon.

“There is a tsunami of data usage. A huge drive towards data will bring a lot of opportunities that will continue,” Sood told ET.

Despite the fact that data rates have fallen 90% in the past one-and-ahalf years and voice tariffs are down 58%, severely denting revenue, Vodafone is aggressively expanding its 4G footprint, Sood said.


“We are rolling out 4G sites, building capacity, and adding coverage for rural areas,” he said.

The chief executive said India has more data consumption than anywhere else in the world. For itself, Vodafone India’s data consumption grew roughly 350% in the year ended March 2018, while the average 4G broadband consumption in India has reached 11Gigabyte (GB) per month in December 2017, a recent study revealed.