Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea drop up to 3% as Jio looks to launch 5G by Diwali

Shares of telecom operators Bharti Airtel and fell up to 3% in Monday's trade after peer Jio announced details of its forthcoming 5G rollout.

In his address at Reliance's 45th AGM, Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said his company will roll out 5G services by Diwali. Ambani in his AGM speech said his oil-to-telecom would reach every town in India by December 2023.

At 2:51 pm, shares of were trading at Rs 718.90, down 1.59 per cent. Vodafone Idea declined 2.74 per cent to Rs 8.89.

Mukesh Ambani said his company has indigenously developed an end-to-end 5G stack, which is cloud-native, software-defined, and digitally managed, with support for advanced features like Quantum Security. He said Jio 5G will be the world’s largest and most advanced 5G network and will deploy the latest version of 5G, called Stand-Alone 5G, which has zero dependency on our 4G network.

During his initial speech, Ambani said, "Reliance has continued to make all-round progress across its businesses.”

Ambani said his company became India's first corporate to cross $100 billion in annual revenues. Reliance's consolidated revenues grew 47 per cent to Rs 7.93 lakh crore, or $104.6 billion, he said in his initial speech.

Reliance's annual consolidated EBITDA crossed a crucial milestone of Rs 1.25 lakh crore, he said, adding that Jio has consolidated its position as the largest telecom service provider.