Elon's Starlink Tie-up Talks In Market Pumps Vodafone Idea To The Skies In India
Grapevine had it on Friday that world's largest tech billionaire and maverick businessman Elon Musk would tie-up with India's Vodafone Idea (Vi) for his maiden entry into India's telecoms space. Markets were also betting that the government would sell its 33.1 percent stake in Vi to Musk to enable Starlink to enter the Indian market. Musk is visiting India to attend the Vibrant Gujarat Business Summit between January 10 and 12 and a big land deal in the state for a mega factory for his auto company Tesla has already been reported. Markets are now hoping that major announcements would be made by Starlink and the government in the telecoms space when Musk visits Gujarat.
The markets were further betting that even Amazon's Project Kuiper was desperate to enter India for its broadband services and would require a spectrum partner, something that could make the stocks of India's telecoms players an attractive bet. Amazon would be pitted against the likes of Elon Musk-owned Starlink, Bharti-backed Oneweb and Reliance Industries' Jio Satellite in India. While Bharti and Jio have their own satellite platforms, it leaves Vi open for a tie-up with Musk or Amazon.
Nearly 200 crore shares of Vodafone Idea (Vi) were traded on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the BSE combined out of which around 54 crore shares were marked for delivery. It is the highest volume that the counter has witnessed in the past couple of years. This pushed up the share price of Vi by 21 percent, the biggest single-day gain for any Indian telecoms company and Vi in 2023. Vi touched a 52-week high of Rs 16.25 on the NSE and closed at Rs 16 from its previous closing price of Rs 13.25. Vi has around 22 crore (220 million) existing customers, making it among the world's top 10 companies in terms of subscriber base. In September, Vi paid Rs 1701 crore to the government for the 5G spectrum it had acquired in the 2022 auction, making it a potential suitor in the new game.
Starlink, which is made up of around 4,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit, is operated by SpaceX and can bring mobile and broadband coverage even to untapped rural areas. In India, the government is near to finalising Starlink's application as an internet service provider and also grant the company a global mobile personal communication by satellite services (GMPCS) license. For the same GMPCS business, Starlink has tied-up with Vodafone in other countries. Vodafone’s freshly rebranded New Zealand arm, One NZ, has landed a deal with Musk’s SpaceX to roll out full mobile coverage to the country in 2024. In Europe, Vodafone has also tied-up with project Kuiper of Amazon.
Reportedly, Starlink's license after a security check is completed, as the answers given by it to the government's queries were found satisfactory. The company was asked to provide information related to its plans for data storage in the country as per the existing norms.
Vi has been parched for investments and for nearly a decade now it has been an underdog in India's telecoms sector waiting for a knight to save it. But even in the worst of times, the company has remained a going concern and never defaulted on its loan obligation. Vi's revenue base has remained steady at around Rs 41,000 crores (approximately $8B) for the past couple of years but the entire income goes into operations and interest payments to the bank.
In December, India’s Parliament passed a telecommunications bill that replaces its century-old rules and paves the way to modernize connectivity including satellite broadband. India has 1.17 billion telephone connections and 881 million internet subscribers. The newly passed telecom bill also allows spectrum allocation for satellite-based services without participating in auctions, which could favour OneWeb, Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper which are all keen to start their satellite broadband services in India.
