Vodafone Idea (Vi) is on a branding blitzkrieg, likely earmarking around Rs 800 crore(US$1.09billion) for this fiscal year, as it pulls out all stops to first arrest the rapid erosion in its subscriber base and then starts adding users which will hold the key to its return to stability.

Besides a co-presenting sponsorship deal with Star India for the Indian Premier League (IPL), the telco has also lined up an exhaustive campaign to ensure its new brand identity penetrates across urban and rural regions in a bid to lure more customers, people familiar with the matter said.

They added that Vodafone Idea – which recently rebranded itself to Vi reflect the completion of the merger – may trump Reliance Jio to become the largest telecom advertiser this fiscal year through March 2021. ET has learnt that market leader Jio is likely to spend Rs 400-450 crore on IPL alone, and another Rs 120-Rs 150 crore on other brand initiatives. Competitor Bharti Airtel, which had reduced its ad and branding spending to Rs 180-Rs 220 crore a year between 2016-2018, is expected to spend around Rs 300 crore this year, similar to the 2019 levels.

Japanese telco Rakuten says collaboration with Jio on 5G possible; wants India to develop telecom supply chain

Japanese telecom operator Rakuten Mobile said that there could be a possibility of technical collaboration with Reliance Jio for the development of network technologies in the 5G domain.