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Vodafone to invest Rs 13,000 cr in India

Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao has committed investments worth Rs. 13,000 crore (1.3 billion GBP) to India which will be used primarily for capacity augmentation and new business initiatives of the company in India

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NEW DELHI, INDIA: During his meeting with PM Narendra Modi in London, Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao has committed investments worth Rs 13,000 crore (1.3 billion GBP) to India which will be used primarily for capacity augmentation and new business initiatives.

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Since starting operations in India in 2007, Vodafone has already invested over Rs. 111,000 crore in India market and over Rs. 100,000cr contributed to the exchequer.

Vodafone’s India business, in addition to being the highest contributor to Vodafone Group’s service revenue growth, has the largest customer base (188 million customers), is the largest data traffic market (by volume) and the third largest contributor to Vodafone Group’s service revenues.

“At Vodafone, we are enthused with the PM’s vision for ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’. Vodafone India serves over 188 million citizens, of which almost 100 million are from rural areas. As the co-creator of the telecom ecosystem, a catalyst of the telecom revolution in India and being committed for the long term, we are ideally poised to partner the Government of India in fulfilling these important initiatives. We are pleased to announce our enhanced commitment to India through this series of significant further investments,”said Colao.

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The committed investment of Rs 13,000 crore includes:

Digital India - Rs 8,000 crore to enhance, upgrade and expand network coverage

Make in India - Rs 4,000 crore towards:

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-Rs 3,000 crore to further increase capacity and upgrade its high-end technology center and IT and customer experience centers in Pune and Ahmedabad.

-Rs 1,000 crore for setting up a state-of-the-art tier-4 data center. This is the first of its kind in the Indian telecom sector and is specially designed to service the evolving communications needs of businesses and enterprises

Financial Inclusion - Rs 1,000 crore towards the payment bank for which Vodafone M-Pesa Ltd. has received an in-principle license from RBI. This will provide further impetus to M-Pesa’s focus on financial inclusion and accelerate India’s journey into a cashless economy.

The planned capacity expansions and investments in the high-end technology centre and the customer service centres will create opportunities for employment and for skilling and training India’s rich talent pool. Vodafone will accordingly increase its staffing levels to 15,000 employees over the next two years.

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