Will maintain investment level in India: Vodafone

Vodafone will maintain its investment level in India and has described telecom service providers as the 'digital planners' for Digital India programme, the company's CEO Vittorio Colao said on Wednesday.

"There are lot of things happening in the telecom world. The new generation is glued to data. We are the digital planners. We will enable entrepreneurs to fulfill their dreams," Colao said in a meeting.

"We have partnered with the government to enable its Digital India and Financial Inclusion programmes," Sunil Sood, managing director and CEO, Vodafone India said.

Vodafone has so far invested Rs.80,000 crore in India. It invests around Rs. 8,500 crore every year in the country.

"We will continue with our level of investments. We will continue to expand," he said.
Talking about recent move by the Indian government which allowed spectrum trading and sharing, he said: "It is a positive move."

Asked whether the company is planning initial public offer (IPO) any time soon, Colao said, "Can't give you a date. We are positively inclined towards it. We have started the preparatory work."

Regarding the company's core strength, he said it has strong cloud infrastructure and it leads in machine-to-machine and Internet of Things spaces.