Shares in
top mobile carriers such as Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular fell sharply on
Thursday on fears that Reliance Jio Infocomm's participation in the upcoming
spectrum auction will hurt profitability of telecom companies.
Reliance
Jio, a unit of billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries and seven other
companies will bid for 2G spectrum starting February 3. Cash-rich Reliance will
be able to offer basic mobile phone services along with its yet to be launched
4G service if it wins spectrum, increasing competition in the market that has
about a dozen players.
