Ericsson bags Rs 2040 crores 4G contract from Vodafone

In order to expand its 4G services in the country, Vodafone India, the second largest telco gave the contract to Ericsson worth $300 million for UP West, Rajasthan, Odisha, North East and Assam telecom zones, people close to the development said.

"The deployment of 4G LTE network is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2017. Ericsson, under this contract, is deploying its full radio system portfolio that offers 50 improved energy efficiency," said one of the persons to ET.

The 4G services have become very common in India and every telecom company wants to provide its services at lower costs ever since Reliance Jio announced its plan. Infact Vodafone has recently announced SuperNet 4G services in Goa and Chennai as well.

The company is also in talks with Aditya Birla Group-led Idea Cellular for a merger to give tough competition to Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio.

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"The combined entity's operating margins will improve by around 3 per cent points due to cost synergies in networking and selling, general and administrative expenses," the India rating said in a report adding that, the merged company will a revenues in the Rs 77,500- 80,000 crore range and the pretax profit margins will be around 28 per cent.

This is not the first that Vodafone has awarded any compnay, recently the comapny has given a multi-year managed services contract, worth Rs1,420 crore and covering several telecom circles. The company has awarded similar contract to Huawei in Karnataka, Kerala and Delhi circles.