Vi 5G rollout is set to accelerate sharply over the next two months, with the operator planning to light up services in 90 additional Indian cities by May 2026.
This expansion will take its 5G footprint from 43 cities today to 133 cities nationwide, as the company races to narrow the gap with market leaders Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel.
Under the new phase, the Vi 5G rollout will cover 15 priority circles, including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh (East and West), Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Haryana and Gujarat. The company says it will focus on industrial corridors, high data consumption centres and emerging urban clusters, reflecting a more data-driven approach to network investment.
Key cities expected to gain Vi 5G coverage include Chennai, Hyderabad, Goa, Gandhinagar, Kolhapur, Varanasi, Puducherry, Sikar and Prayagraj, among others. In the North and East, Vi has flagged locations such as Karnal, Panipat, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Asansol, Durgapur, Darjeeling and Gangtok, while Gwalior and Bhopal are among the new 5G sites in Madhya Pradesh.
The Vi 5G rollout is being supported by long-standing network partners Nokia and Ericsson, along with Samsung, which joined as a key vendor under a multi-billion-dollar equipment deal. Vi has also recently extended its collaboration with Ericsson to modernise its charging systems and deploy new 5G and 4G sites, aiming to deliver more flexible, cloud-native services.
This push comes as India has emerged as the world's second-largest 5G market, with more than 400 million subscribers and networks covering almost all districts, according to the Union communications ministry. For Vi, the latest rollout phase is critical to stay relevant in a rapidly maturing 5G landscape where user expectations around speed, coverage and reliability are rising quickly.
The Vi 5G rollout to 133 cities by May signals a rare moment of positive momentum for a telco that has long trailed its rivals on next-generation networks. Yet the company must now convert this wider footprint into a better customer experience and sustained subscriber growth in a market that already counts hundreds of millions of 5G users. If Vi can execute on time and maintain investment in its newly upgraded network, its 5G push could mark the start of a slow but meaningful recovery in India's fiercely competitive telecom sector.