Vodafone Idea rises 7% on heavy volumes; gains 14% in last four days

Shares of Vodafone Idea (Vi) moved 7 per cent higher to Rs 11.03 on the BSE in Wednesday’s intra-day trade on the back of heavy volumes, in an otherwise weak market.

At 10:40 am; the stock of Vi was trading 6 per cent higher at Rs 10.95, as compared to a 1 per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex. The counter saw huge trading volumes with a combined 214 million equity shares having changed hands on the NSE and BSE. The stock of the telecom services company was trading higher for the fourth straight day and has rallied 14 per cent during the same period.

The board of directors of the company on March 31, 2022 had approved the allotment of 3,383 million equity shares at Rs 13.30 per scrip to three promoters group entities - Euro Pacific Securities, Prime Metals and Oriana Investments - for about Rs 4,500 crore.

The debt-ridden telecom operator on March 3 said that its board approved raising up to Rs 14,500 crore, including Rs 4,500 crore from promoter entities -- Vodafone and Aditya Birla Group. An amount of Rs 10,000 crore would be raised by way of equity or debt instruments, in one or more tranches, it had said.

Meanwhile, British telecom major Vodafone has raised its stake in Vi to 47.61 per cent through its subsidiary Prime Metals, a regulatory filing said on Monday. The company earlier held 44.39 per cent stake in Vi.

This apart, as per OpenSignal report, Vi’s network saw download speeds of 13.6 Mbps — 0.4 Mbps faster than Airtel users. Vi users also observed the fastest average upload speeds of 4.9 Mbps, placing Vi ahead of Airtel (4.3 Mbps) and Jio (4.1 Mbps) in this category.

Jio led the 4G availability and 4G coverage experience as users on its network spent the greatest proportion of time connected to 4G services — 99.5 per cent. Airtel is in second place with a 4G availability score of 98.3 per cent, followed by Vi’s score of 92 per cent, ICICI Securities said in a note.