Adani Group participated in the 5G spectrum auctions of 2022. The company only acquired 400 MHz of spectrum in the 26 GHz band for Rs 212 crore. With the spectrum purchase, Adani Group commented that they are not interested in offering B2C services in the telecom sector right now. The spectrum that Adani Data Networks bid for is only to provide B2B services, which is setting up captive private 5G networks. According to a TNN report, Adani Group is looking to launch 5G services for enterprises in 2023. In addition, to expand in the digital space, Adani Group plans to launch B2C applications in 2023 to onboard millions of customers. Addressing his employees in the new year, Gautam Adani said that in 2023, they would invest in expanding the network of data centers, building AI-ML and industrial cloud capabilities, along with rolling out 5G services and launching B2C apps. It would be interesting to see what kind of B2C applications Adani Group is working on. Adani Group would also face strong competition from names such as Bharti Airtel in the enterprise 5G space. Airtel has already bagged a private 5G network deal from the Mahindra Group. So the journey to grow in the enterprise 5G space would definitely be full of challenges for the Adani Group, despite having an established brand. The conglomerate doesn’t have the spectrum resources access to the infrastructure for launching commercial 5G services for consumers. This is why it is not even talking about launching 5G for consumers directly. It would involve a lot of money and time, and then there are already big players, including Airtel and Jio, to compete with. Gautam Adani believes that the empire he is building in the digital space, including data centers, B2C apps, 5G and more, are independent yet mutually connected opportunities that are backed by the group’s energy business. It would be definitely interesting to see how things pan out for the group.
