Adani to enter 5G spectrum race
11 Jul 2022 11:56:15
New Delhi, Jul 11: For years they tiptoed around each other but now the groups led by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani will for the first time be in direct competition when they later this month participate in the auction of airwaves capable of providing fifth generation or 5G telecom services.
But the rivalry between the two politically well-connected Gujarati businessmen will not yet see a full-blown market clash despite overlaps.
On Saturday, the Adani group confirmed plans to participate in the July 26 5G spectrum auction but said the airwaves it was seeking was to set up a private network to help digitize its businesses from airports to energy to data centers. This meant no entry into the consumer mobile telephony space, where Ambani's Reliance Jio is the largest player. Jio as well as telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal's Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Ltd -- the other two dominated telecom companies in the country -- have also made applications to participate in the 5G auction, three sources with knowledge of the matter said. While the three will be bidding to corner the spectrum to support a pan-India rollout of 5G voice and data services, Adani will compete to get the same airwaves for private captive networks. Incidentally, the telecom companies in the run-up for the auction bitterly opposed any direct allocation of spectrum to non-telecom entities for setting up private captive networks as it would severely impact their businesses. They wanted the non-telcos to lease out the spectrum from them or set up private captive networks for them. But the government weighed in favor of private networks. The nation's richest -- Adani and Ambani -- had taken contrasting approaches to business diversification, which in recent months has seen increasing overlap. While Ambani, 65, expanded from the oil refining and petrochemicals business into consumer-facing telecom and retail businesses, Adani diversified from operating ports to producing coal, energy distribution, airports, data centers, and more recently into cement and copper. Adani, 60, has in recent months set up a subsidiary for a foray into petrochemicals -- a business that Ambani's father Dhirubhai began with before its downstream and upstream operations.
Ambani too has announced multi-billion-dollar plans for the new energy business, including Giga factories for solar panels, batteries, green hydrogen, and fuel cells. Adani, who had previously announced plans to be the world's largest renewable energy producer by 2030, has unveiled hydrogen ambitions. Sources, however, said while there is an overlap in the clean energy space, there is no direct competition between the two.