Mumbai, June 27: India’s spectrum auction concluded within a few hours of bidding on day-2, with telcos buying over Rs 11,300 crore worth of radio waves in all, which is just 12 per cent of the Rs 96,238 crore minimum value that government had estimated for the spectrum on offer.The auction, where a total of 10 GHz of spectrum ranging between 800 MHz to 26 GHz was placed on the block, fetched total bids worth Rs 11,340 crore, sources with knowledge of the matter said. In all, only 140-150 MHz are estimated to have been sold in seven rounds.
Five rounds of bidding happened on the opening day on June 25, but Wednesday did not see much action, leading to officials declaring the end of the auction at around 1130 hrs.
The 2024 auction – that was held after a gap of nearly two years – saw radio waves in 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz, 3300 MHz and 26 GHz on offer.
On expected lines, the auction this time around has been low-key as market watchers had anticipated limited bidding, with telcos primarily focusing on spectrum renewals, and selective sprucing up on radio waves for boosting their coverage.
Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (VIL) are vying for the radio waves that support high-speed mobile services, in these auctions.
The operator-wise break-up of the bids, or exact amount that telcos dished out individually, is not immediately clear and will be known once an official announcement comes.
As per the day-one spectrum auction report issued by the Department of Telecom on Tuesday evening, bidding took place mainly in the 900 and 1800 MHz bands. The operator also placed bids for the 2100 Mhz band spectrum in three circles.
During the last auction in 2022 – a blockbuster that turned out to be a seven-day affair – a record over Rs 1.5 lakh crore worth of 5G telecom spectrum was sold, with billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio emerging as the top bidder, cornering nearly half of all the airwaves (worth Rs 88,078 crore).
At that time, telecom tycoon Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel made a successful bid of Rs 43,084 crore, while Vodafone Idea bought spectrum for Rs 18,799 crore.
Bharti Airtel has spectrum expiring in six circles and VIL in two circles.