Officials from Idea Cellular Ltd & Vodafone India Ltd confirmed on Monday the 20th March 2017 that they have approved the Merger.
Vodafone will be the dominant partner with total of 45.1% Stake & shall transfer 4.9% stake to the Aditya Birla Group (Idea) for Rs. 3874 crore in cash to complete the deal. Idea will then own total 26% stake in the merger. But later they can acquire more shares from Vodafone to equalise the shareholding.
After this deal the combined #Vodafone-Idea-group will become India’s largest telecom Company.
Reason for the merger
The Merger was planned due to the launch of #JIO who took a huge customer base from the Indian Market. Now #Vodafone-Idea will have 400 Million Customers making it 35% market share.
Jio which entered the markets few months back had made a huge impact on the customer base by providing Free Voice Calls & Data for more than 6 months attracting a huge customer base & forcing the three India’s biggest Telecom Operators – Idea, Vodafone & Airtel to cut prices & even they now have to offer free calling & net with a fix monthly recharge of approx Rs. 350/-
Jio although offering free services the services are still not upto the mark & henceforth with the merger may be these telecom companies could recapture the market share.