Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel stock rise after partnership with SpaceX   

Shares of Reliance Industries as well as Bharti Airtel began the trade on a positive note on Wednesday 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 5.49 pc to hit a high of Rs 1,388.25 apiece on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Soon, it pared all gains and traded 0.77 per cent lower to Rs 1,650.10 per piece.

On the BSE, it fell 0.49 per cent to Rs 1,653.05 per share.

Reliance Industries’ stock also rose 1.3 per cent initially to trade at Rs 1,263 on the NSE before trading 0.40 per cent higher at Rs 1,242.50.

On the BSE, it went up 1.13 per cent to Rs 1,261.55 apiece and then traded at Rs 1,242.50 apiece.

The benchmark indices saw a volatile trend with 30-share BSE Sensex declining 171.81 points or 0.23 per cent to 73,930.51 and the NSE Nifty slipping 45.20 points or 0.2 per cent to 22,452.70 in the morning trade.

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 Jio’s 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.

Earlier, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti 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).