Vodafone Idea shares surge over 12% in three sessions; here is why

Shares of debt-ridden telecom operator Vodafone Idea rose for a third straight session on Friday, January 30. In the last three trading sessions, Vodafone Idea shares have climbed as much as 12.41% to hit an intraday high of ₹11.05 on the National Stock Exchange. In the intraday deals, Vodafone Idea shares rose as much as 9.95%.

Vodafone Idea shares came under buying interest after the company in an investors' presentation said that it plans to invest ₹45,000 crore over the next three years to return to a growth trajectory.

During the company’s earnings call for the third quarter of the current fiscal year (Q3 FY26), Vodafone Idea (Vi) CEO Abhijit Kishore said the company will expand network coverage in 17 out of 22 telecom circles to bring it at par with competitors and try to convert 2G sites in the five circles in the next three years.

"We are going to commit ₹45,000 crore of investment over the next three years in this business, and this is in addition to the ₹18,000 crore that we have already invested over the last six quarters," Kishore said.

Kishore said that the money will be invested in network expansion through an extremely aggressive rollout of the network, in line with the company’s strategy of targeting 17 priority markets, 5 in the rest of the market, and a focus on 5G.

"We, over the next 30 months, will cover all the markets in the country, which are both urban and rural. Here, I'm defining 'urban' as towns with a population of 20,000 plus with 5G. I also need to bridge the gap on 4G.

Vodafone Idea Q3 earnings

Vodafone Idea on Tuesday reported a narrowing of its consolidated net loss to ₹5,286 crore for Q3 FY26, mainly due to customer service upgrades.

The company's subscriber base declined by 3.4% year-on-year to 19.29 crore from 19.98 crore, although the telco saw an increase in postpaid and 4G/5G subscribers.

The postpaid subscriber base increased by 14.2% to 2.88 crore from 2.52 crore a year ago. The 4G and 5G subscriber base increased to 12.85 crore from 12.6 crore on a YoY basis.

VIL said its user revenue, or ARPU (average revenue per user), rose 7.3% year-on-year to ₹186 in the reported quarter from ₹173 in the quarter ended December 2024, mainly due to customer upgrades.

Consolidated revenue from operations remained almost flat at ₹11,323 crore during the latest third quarter compared to ₹11,117 crore a year ago.