The acquisition of assets by Jio is likely to put ahead of its rivals Bharti Airtel and Idea+Vodafone.
January 2, 2018
Reliance Jio Infocomm’s (Jio) 4G footprint after acquiring spectrum from Reliance Communication (Rcom), could potentially be higher than Bharti Airtel and the new company formed post Idea and Vodafone merger.
“Jio’s proposed spectrum acquisition from RCOM would help it close the gap with Bharti (including announced transactions pending completion), and Idea+Vodafone. In fact, on wireless broadband spectrum (3G/4G), Jio, at 70 MHz per circle, would then be ahead of Bharti and Idea+Vodafone,” said Goldman Sachs Equity Research in its report.
Last week, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocomm agreed to buy the wireless assets of RCom for roughly Rs 24,000 crore. The deal would help bail out RCom which is struggling to repay Rs 45,000 crore of debt. The deal includes -towers, optic fibre cable network, spectrum and media convergence nodes (MCNs)–from RCom and its affiliates. The report said that the incumbents will continue running their 2G networks in the near future, since more than 50% of their subscribers still have 2G feature phones.
