Vi is here...

The world's largest branding intergration ever. Here is mostly everything you have to know about it.

The new brand name Vi which is pronounced as "WE" is a combination of (V)odafon and (i)dea. As covered in the past the two firms were facing large backlash due to their decreasing sales rates and had their vendors calling off their projects. Now a new leaf is turned, and they have come together and executing the largest merger ever in the history of the business.

Vodafone in July 2020 had about 30 crore users, and in the next few months, their market diffusion fell by more than 60 lakhs. This created a large scare in the market players' hearts who were dependent on Vodafone for their bread. This particular integration goes back to 2018...

In July that year, Vodafone and Idea merged as the largest Indian subscriber base for telecom. The idea was venturing and focussing on the rural setups, with Vodafone looking at the urban setups with Vodafone Red. However, even after the merger, there was no gain for both the firms. Their management realised that there is no benefit by keeping the brands apart. While this skepticism was rising the firms started to lose a large number of users.

Now, the managements have joined forces and made this merger both in terms of branding and organizational purposes. Now collectively the team is going to focus on expanding their coverage all across India for their 4G. Vi is also aiming to be the first to roll out 5G in the nation. The once falling and dying firms have emerged together to again change the game, let us wait and watch what do they have up their sleeves.

Mergers, integrations, and collaborations are terms that are seen for small businesses. Mi with Flipkart for a small segment of sales, being one. However, combining two brands, entities, and philosophies is a large task. It does have its upsides, the thousands of employees fired in August might be brought back. There is a large probability of synergy and collective effort to bring out the best in the telecom industry.

However, it is foolish to blind-side ourselves from the reality of this merger. Imagine, two firms failing to compete against Airtel and Jio as it is coming together to form a new brand. Now I know the first response is "So what they can bounce back and make a difference". I hope so too, however, the firms have been in a merger for more than 2 years now, in those 2 years, the firms have done nothing but made losses. They have lost employees, market battles, sales, users, and what-not.

Combining two firms that are similar to the DishTV and Jio of the television industry against TATAsky is a thin line to walk on. There is large scope if the new brand can deliver on its goal and bring out the 5G while being able to pay their Rs. 25,000 crore installments to their lenders, then they might become the face of the ever-expanding Indian telecom industry. If not, then we are just going to see 2018 repeat itself.

Hope for the best for the future of this nation, and the best for its citizens. But hope should not deviate us from the truth. Vi may be the greatest decision in the history of businesses or a large act of foolishness and desperation. Only time will tell.