India’s spectrum auction has ended after 19 days and 115 rounds of intense bidding, generating a significant windfall for the government.
This is according to an unnamed source cited by Reuters on Wednesday, who said officials will soon formally announce the end of the process and the final sum raised.
A statement from the government said that by the close of play on Tuesday, 110 bidding rounds had been completed, generating bids totalling 1.09 trillion rupees (€15.9 billion), well above the INR800 billion (€11.7 billion) target set by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). At the end of the day, approximately 89% of the spectrum on offer had been provisionally allocated.
The "majority of service areas are going at a premium over [the] reserve price," said the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT).
India is selling off frequencies in the 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, and 2.1 GHz bands. The 900 MHz band proved particularly popular from the beginning, with interest in the 800 MHz picking up later on in the auction.
The majority of lower-band spectrum is in greater demand because much of it is already in the hands of India’s biggest telcos – Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, and Reliance Communications – which are bidding to renew licences that expire this year and next.
They have faced stiff competition from Reliance Industries, which is due to launch a 4G network this year and aims to establish itself as a major player in India’s telecoms sector under the Reliance Jio Infocomm brand.
Meanwhile, the controversial decision to push ahead with the sale of just 5 MHz of 2.1-GHz spectrum resulted in lacklustre bidding for it.
According to Reuters, full details of the auction results are due to be published soon.
