Bharti Airtel shares plunged 5.03% to ₹660.30 on the BSE while Vodafone Idea gained 3.44% to ₹8.72. This follows the Adani Group’s announcement on Saturday that it would bid for spectrum in the 5G auctions.
Shares of Adani Enterprises Ltd, the holding of the Adani Group, also gained 3.42% to ₹2,371.
The Adani Group had clarified that it would not enter the consumer mobility space, but that its bid for 5G spectrum auction would be to provide private network solutions along with enhanced cybersecurity in the airport, ports & logistics, power generation, transmission, distribution and various manufacturing operations.
“In my view, when Adani bids for 5G airwaves, it would be aimed at captive use primarily and it will be aimed at strengthening the group’s need of communication,” said Deven Choksey, MD, KRChoksey Shares & Securities Private Ltd said. “They won’t be interested in entering into public telecom business.”
“The best synergy as one could think of, 5G could supplement their data centre business to begin with. Data centre business with cloud computing, AI, VR and MR offerings could act as a driver for offering services to their own group business apart from connecting the group’s customers, suppliers and other service providers on the captive network,” he added.
In public networks, because the bandwidth is shared among many other users and that could result in non-exclusivity or non-priority in services, it may affect the business case of a large user base such as of the Adani group, he pointed out.
“Adani Group is a conglomerate with significant play in the infrastructure business on the one end and consumer businesses on the other. A captive 5G network can well help them customise their service offerings,” he added.
