NEW DELHI: Vodafone has awarded a big-ticket 4G deployment and expansion contract worth up to EUR500 (Rs3,650 crore) million to Nokia , covering 10 of the country’s 22 telecom zones, people familiar with the matter said.The Finnish gear vendor is deploying and expanding 4G LTE network in Kolkata, Mumbai, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu/Chennai, Haryana, UP East, West Bengal, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu &Kashmir, a one of the people told ET.Nokia and Vodafone India didn’t respond until press time to emails seeking comment.Chinese equipment vendor Huawei is supplying 4G base stations and other equipment for the Vodafone’s networks in Karnataka, Kerala and Delhi circles, ET had earlier reported.By giving this contract, the UK-based telecom major’s India unit is expediting its network expansion and ramping up capacities to counter the looming threat from bigger rival Bharti Airtel and the 4G entrant Reliance Jio, which is currently offering free services in the country, industry watchers say.In last year’s auctions, Vodafone India acquired multi-band 4G capabile spectrum across 1800, 2100 and 2500 MHz bands in all its key telecom circles in the spectrum auction for Rs 202.8 billion (€2.74 billion).Vodafone India has already launched Vodafone 4G services across all 17 circles planned, and it is now rapidly expanding 4G footprint within these circles. The telco now aims to make it available in 2,400 towns across the country by March 2017. These 17 circles cover 91% of Vodafone India’s total revenues and 95% of mobile data revenues.Vodafone India, which commenced operations in 2007, has operations across the country serving over 200 million customers, including over 106 million in rural areas.The telco, in a recent statement, said that it rolled out one 4G site every 10-minute in the last 2-months. In each circle, Vodafone is aggressively growing their 4G footprint by adding new towns daily.Vodafone’s latest 4G contract follows a recent multi-year managed services contract worth €200 million which the telco awarded to Finnish telecom gear vendor a few months back.The telco had previously awarded a three-year managed services and network operations deal worth $180-$220million to Chinese gear maker Huawei covering a few circles.Nokia has had a successful run so far in the country’s 4G market, having already pocketed a a big-ticket 4G deployment and expansion contract worth around $500 million from Bharti Airtel, India’s leading telecom operator.Under the deal, Nokia is deploying 4G technology in three new circles -- Gujarat, Bihar, and UP East -- telecom circle, in addition to six circles -- Mumbai, MP, West Bengal, Odisha, Punjab and Kerala circles -- it already serves.The Finnish gear maker recently told ET that it bagged a total 120 deals in 2016, and it had also claimed leadership in India’s LTE (4G) market on the basis of all deals that concluded before and after the spectrum auction.“We are number one in terms of circles and number of base stations which are going to be rolled out. Our market share in 4G has been higher than 3G and 3G market share was higher than 2G. Similarly, we are number one in VoLTE solution, with a significant lead. It's almost 100% market share,” Nokia India head Sanjay Malik had told ET in a recent interaction.