Hyderabad: Vi (Vodafone Idea) on Tuesday announced the commercial launch of 5G services in India. The telecom giant in its Q3 FY 2024-25 report unveiled the launch of Vi 5G services in Mumbai in March 2025. The report mentioned that the company will expand its 5G services in four cities in April 2025.
Notably, in December 2024, Vi started testing its 5G services in select 17 areas across the nation. The company will become the third telecom operator in India after Airtel and Jio, which launched their 5G services in 2022.
Vi's commercial 5G service rollout starts with Mumbai
Vodafone Idea, in its quarterly report for the third quarter of the financial year 2024-25, mentioned the rollout of 5G services in India starting from Mumbai in March 2025. The service is said to expand to Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Delhi, and Patna in April 2025. The telecom operator has not revealed plans for any further expansion, but it said in a blog post that its 5G rollout will happen all over India "in a phased manner".
"Our commitment to providing comprehensive Vi 5G coverage means that we’re investing in expanding our network infrastructure across the country," Vi said in a blog post. "As we roll out our services, we prioritise connectivity in high-demand areas, ensuring that your experience with Vi 5G remains unmatched. Stay tuned for updates on the latest regions covered by our network."
Vodafone Idea coverage
The report also highlighted that in the last nine months, Vi rapidly expanded its 4G population coverage. During this period, the company increased its 4G population coverage by approximately 41 million, reaching 1.07 billion by the end of December 2024, up from 1.03 billion in March 2024. Vodafone Idea also expanded its 4G data capacity by around 24 per cent, resulting in around 28 per cent improvement in 4G speeds.
The company says it is on track to meet its target of 1.1 billion in 4G population coverage by March 2025 and plans to further expand it to 1.2 billion—covering approximately 90 per cent of the population.
Moreover, the telecom operator reported that the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) increased from Rs 166 to Rs 173 in Q2 FY25, showing a growth of 4.7 per cent on a QoQ basis. The company credited tariff hikes and customer upgrades for the ARPU growth.
Vi expanded its broadband network to more than 4,000 unique broadband towers during Q3. The company claimed that it will be the largest addition of broadband in a single quarter.
