Bharti said to be sniffing around RCom

Bharti Airtel is reportedly eyeing up Reliance Communications spectrum assets, which are currently being sold by lenders who are trying to recover Rs45,000cr in debt.

According to India Infoline, Bharti is making moves towards the assets, though Reliance Jio are also interested in the assets. RCom has been struggling for some time now, and is rumoured to be shutting down its voice services from next month. Perhaps we are about to see the beginning of a bidding war.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Jio has turned up and spoilt a Bharti Airtel party. Perhaps we should not be surprised by Bharti Airtel cracking open its wallet and trying to buy its way out of a difficult situation.

To counter the Jio challenge, we have seen a few different tactics. Vodafone and Idea for instance, decided there was logic in making friends. Combine two of the largest players and create a new market share leader. Seems like a good idea. Others, such as Telenor, decided they didn’t want anything to do with scary Jio and ran home to hide in the corner.

Bharti Airtel has taken what some people might describe as the more obnoxious route. Throw the cash around and buy everything in sight. Show everyone that you are likeable because you have a big bank account. Earlier this year it bought the Indian operations from cowering Telenor, and in October it purchased Tata Teleservices.

Who knows what the right response to the Jio challenge is, but at least Bharti is doing better than RCom.