A total of 10 GHz of radiowaves is up for sale in this auction, ranging between 800 MHz to 26 GHz
India has offered telecom spectrum worth around US$11.53 billion for auction on Tuesday (Jun 25), it said in a release, even as analysts expect lacklustre participation from players as they shore up their existing spectrum.
A total of 10 GHz of radiowaves is up for sale in this auction, ranging between 800 MHz to 26 GHz.
The Indian government derives a big chunk of its revenue from spectrum auctions, which award telecom companies rights over airwaves for a particular period.
During the previous auction in August 2022, telecom players Vodafone Idea (VI), Bharti Airtel and Reliance Industries’ Jio Infocomm together picked up 5G spectrum worth US$19 billion to boost capacities in the world’s second-largest smartphone market.
The amount of spectrum up for auction this time around is lower than the previous year’s, as telecom firms have already acquired enough to meet most of their bandwidth requirements in the previous auction, also a likely indication that they would not be bidding for bigger blocks.
“Bidding unlikely to be a spirited exercise… we do not expect any player to bid aggressively at the auction,” analysts at Antique Stock Broking said in a note.
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Antique expects Bharti to bid for some of its expiring spectrum – airwaves where its licence is expiring – worth 38.2 billion rupees (S$618.9 million), while Jio, which has no spectrum pending for renewal, is likely to be selective.
Debt-ridden VI may only bid for spectrum that is expiring or to fill in gaps, the note added.
The auction was delayed twice until a new government was elected, local newspaper The New Indian Express reported earlier this month, citing unnamed officials.
Shares of the two listed telecom firms erased early gains on the day, with VI down 0.17 per cent and Bharti Airtel down 0.3 per cent. REUTERS
