India has received bids worth Rs 150,173 crore or $18.98 billion during the 5G spectrum auction that ended on Monday (August 1, 2022).
Reliance Jio, the # telecom operator in India, is the highest bidder as compared with Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) and the new entrant Adani group.

The successful 5G spectrum auction in India means there will be strong demand for 5G smartphones powered by chipset suppliers such as Qualcomm and MediaTek.

Leading telecom network suppliers such as Nokia and Ericsson will look forward to supply 5G network to mobile operators. Both Huawei and ZTE will not be supplying 5G network to its clients as India has already banned them due to security concerns.

The auction stretched into seven days and ended this afternoon.

The bid value during the 5G spectrum auction in India had touched Rs 150,130 crore on Sunday against Rs 150,000 crore on Saturday, Rs 149,855 crore ($18.88 billion) on the fourth day, Rs 149,623 crore on the third day, Rs 149,454 crore on the second day and Rs 145,000 crore on the first day (July 26).

The demand for the 5G spectrum is almost double at Rs 77,815 crore worth 4G airwaves sold last year and triple of Rs 50,968.37 crore garnered from a 3G auction in 2010.

New entrant Adani group is said to have bought 26 Mhz spectrum for setting up a private telecom network.

Airtel and Jio purchased 5G spectrum for pan-India footprint, while Vodafone Idea is aiming for selective participation.

The government had put on offer spectrum in 10 bands but received no bids for airwaves in 600 MHz, 800 MHz and 2300 MHz bands.

India tried to sell spectrum in various low (600 MHz, 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz), mid (3300 MHz) and high (26 GHz) frequency bands.

About two-thirds of the bids were for the 5G bands (3300 Mhz and 26 GHz), while more than a quarter of the demand came in the 700 Mhz band – a band that had gone unsold in the previous two auctions (2016 and 2021).