Vodafone India, the country’s second largest operator, rolled out its first 4G service in Kochi, Kerela state, with plans to soon launch in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata.

The operator, with a 19 per cent market share, said in August it would launch 4G services in five cities by the end of the year.

It will offer customers a free upgrade to 4G SIM cards and service starts at INR29 ($0.44) for 120MB of data, the company said in a statement. The largest data package is 20GB for INR2,499 ($38).

Vodafone India has invested INR7 billion in its 4G network in Kerela, in the southwest, over the past 18 months, The Economic Times said.

Since June, the country’s leading operators have been racing to roll out 4G networks to capture consumers’ growing appetite for data services.

Market leader Bharti Airtel is aggressively pushing 4G across the country after announcing in August plans to offer 4G service in about 400 towns and villages by the end of the year. It also recently committed to investing INR600 billion ($9.04 billion) to expand its network, targeting bringing mobile broadband access to 500,000 villages.

The push is aimed at gaining an edge on new entrant Reliance Jio, which again has delayed its pan-India 4G launch from June to early next year.

Idea Cellular and BSNL are also gearing up to launch 4G services next year.