India's GSM Spectrum Auction Concludes After Just Two Days

Published on: 14th Nov 2012

­India's re-auction of its GSM radio spectrum has ended after just two days of bidding and raised far less than the government had initially hoped.

The total bids came in at just Rs 9,407 crore, far lower than the Rs 28,000 crore the government had hoped to raise, and well short of the Rs 40,000 that was being talked about when the Supreme Court cancelled the 2008 allocation of licenses earlier this year.

None of the five companies bidding in the auction made an offer for the pan-India licenses, which had a reserve price of Rs 14,000, and was widely seen as been far too high for the market to support.

In total 101 of the available 144 blocks of spectrum were sold, but no bids were made for the two expensive circles of Delhi or Mumbai. The government still has to decide what to do with the CDMA spectrum after all the bidders dropped out of that auction.

Based on the provisional results, Vodafone secured additional spectrum in 14 circles, and was the largest bidder.

Vodafone India said that its "decision to participate in the 2G auction was to secure additional spectrum in many circles where we have not received any new 2G spectrum since 2008. Our customers grew in that period from 60 million to 153 million today."

Telenor backed new entrant, Telewings secured licenses in six circles. In a statement, Telenor noted that with a total population of about 600 million people and an actual mobile phone customer penetration of just 40 percent, these states represent a strong growth opportunity for the company. All Uninor assets in these circles, including customers, employees, partners and infrastructure will be transferred to the new company and services will continue uninterrupted.

 

Tags: [trai]  [vodafone]  [telewings]  [radio spectrum]  [India]