Idea, Vodafone merger in final stages of approval

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is in the final stages of approving the merger between Idea Cellular and Vodafone India, a development which will create India’s largest mobile phone operator and bring to an end a phase of rapid consolidation triggered by the entry of Reliance Jio.

“The Idea-Vodafone merger is in the final stages of approval, because they have got the NCLT and Sebi clearances,” telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said on the sidelines of an industry event on setting telecom standards for upcoming technologies, including 5G.

“There are some FDI approvals that are involved, there is liberalization of licenses, so there are a number of clearances and not a one-step clearance, so we are in the process of expediting it,” she added.


Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, India's No 2 and No 3 carriers, are merging their operations in India to create an entity that will be equally owned by UK’s Vodafone Group and India’s diversified Aditya Birla Group.

The merged entity will have over 410 million customers, nearly 42% customer market share (CMS) and nearly 37% revenue market share (RMS), displacing Bharti Airtel from the top position after more than a decade, and leaving the new entity stronger placed to take on competitive pressures triggered by Jio. The new comer has nearly 170 million subscribers and over 16% CMS and 15.3% RMS. Airtel has a CMS of 29.5% and an RMS of 31.5%.

The two groups indicated that the merger is set to close shortly by announcing last week the leadership team of the merged entity, which will be led by Balesh Sharma as chief executive officer (CEO). Some other key leaders of the merged company will include Akshaya Moondra as chief financial officer (CFO), who was till now CFO for Idea Cellular, and Ambrish Jain, currently deputy managing director at Idea, who will be responsible for circles operations and service delivery.

Suvamoy Roy Choudhury, who leads Vodafone India’s human resources (HR), will be responsible for overall HR functions of combined businesss.