Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel stocks surrender early gains in mid session

Shares of Reliance Industries as well as Bharti Airtel began the trade on a positive note on Wednesday but soon pared all the gains and were trading lower in the afternoon trade.

The shares of bellwether Reliance Industries and Bharti Airtel rose after the two firms announced their partnerships with Elon Musk's SpaceX for providing high-speed internet services in India.

Bharti Airtel stock opened with a gain of 3.37 per cent to hit a high of Rs 1,717.25 apiece on the BSE. Soon, it pared all gains and traded 1.28 per cent lower at Rs 1,64.0.

On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), it fell 0.77 per cent to Rs 1,650.10 apiece. During the session, it rose 3.23 per cent to Rs 1,716.65 on the exchange.

Reliance Industries' stock also rose 1.3 per cent in the initial trade at Rs 1,263 on the NSE before trading 0.15 per cent lower at Rs 1,245.40.

On the BSE, it went up 1.13 per cent to Rs 1,261.55 apiece and then traded flat at Rs 1,247 apiece on the exchange.

The benchmark indices saw a volatile trend with 30-share BSE Sensex plunging 413.08 points or 0.56 per cent to 73,689.24 and the NSE Nifty declining 139.05 points or 0.62 per cent to 22,358.85.

The Reliance Industries' digital services company Jio Platforms on Wednesday said it has signed an agreement with SpaceX to offer Starlink's broadband internet services to its customers in India.

The announcement came a day after rival Bharti Airtel signed a similar pact with SpaceX.

Both the domestic telecom operators said the agreements are subject to SpaceX receiving authorisation to sell Starlink in India.

"For the telecom industry, the addition of satellite technology should be no different from bringing new technologies to its customers. Just like 4G, 5G, and 6G in the future, we will now have one more technology in our mix, i.e. SAT-G. Soon customers will be able to carry their mobiles to the remotest part of the world, with them in the skies and blue oceans," said Mittal, Founder and Chairman of Bharti Enterprises, in a statement.

Mittal said he had earlier called on "the telecom and satellite players to work together, combine their strengths, and complete the mission of connecting the unconnected, covering the oceans and the skies as well as difficult-to-reach areas".

"I am glad that this is being followed through with active announcements of partnerships between satellite companies and telecom operators," he said.

Earlier, Airtel was at loggerheads with Starlink over issues related to licence fees and spectrum pricing for satellite-based internet service providers. Airtel is also the single-largest shareholder with a 21.2 per cent ownership in Starlink's rival firm Eutelsat OneWeb.

OneWeb has already received permission to start operations in the country and is waiting for spectrum allocation to roll out services.

Meanwhile, shares of telecom carrier Vodafone Idea plunged 6 per cent on the bourses on Wednesday, a day after the debt-ridden company lost 17.15 lakh wireless subscribers in December.

Vodafone Idea's shares tanked 5.99 per cent to Rs 6.90 apiece on both NSE and BSE, respectively.

On Tuesday, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said the total telephone subscriber base in India grew marginally to 1,189.92 million in December 2024 with Jio adding the highest number of subscribers in both mobile and fixed-line segments.

Total telephone subscribers stood at 1,187.15 million in November, as per Trai.

Reliance Jio Infocomm was the frontrunner with 476.58 million broadband subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel (289.31 million), and Vodafone Idea (126.38 million).