Ambani vs Adani: No direct mkt clash yet

Gautam Adani speaks with Neeta Ambani, wife of Mukesh Ambani, at swearing-in ceremony of PM Modi in 2014. Pics/AFP

For years they tiptoed around each other but now the groups led by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani will for the first time be in direct competition when they later this month participate in the auction of airwaves capable of providing fifth generation or 5G telecom services.

But the rivalry between the two politically well-connected Gujarati businessmen will not yet see a full-blown market clash despite overlaps. On Saturday, Adani group confirmed plans to participate in the July 26 5G spectrum auction, but said the airwaves it was seeking was to set up a private network to help digitise its businesses from airports to energy to data centres. This meant no entry into the consumer mobile telephony space, where Ambani's Reliance Jio is the largest player.

Mukesh Ambani

Jio as well as telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal's Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Ltd - the other two dominated telecom companies in the country - have also made applications to participate in the 5G auction, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.

While the three will be bidding to corner spectrum to support a pan-India rollout of 5G voice and data services, Adani will compete to get the same airwaves for private captive networks.

Incidentally, the telcos in the run-up for the auction bitterly opposed any direct allocation of spectrum to non-telecom entities for private networks as it would severely impact their businesses. They wanted the non-telcos to lease out spectrum from them or they set up private captive networks for them. But the Centre weighed in favour of private networks.

Sources said there is an overlap in the clean energy space, but there is no direct competition between the two. While Adani group is looking to split water using solar power to produce green hydrogen, Ambani's Reliance is looking at producing hydrogen from natural gas and other hydrocarbons supported by carbon capture and storage.

"Where is the direct competition? Adani will desalinate sea water for use in electrolysers to produce green hydrogen, while Ambani is looking to decarbonise his oil business," a source said. While they will have a face-off at the spectrum auction, there will be no direct competition on ground yet, another source said.

Adani Group plans to use the airwaves for its data centre as well as the super app it is building to support businesses from electricity distribution to airports, gas retailing to ports.

But all this doesn't mean a market confrontation with Ambani yet, sources said.

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