Amid coronavirus scare, Jio may opt for multiple vendors

Kolkata: The continuation of the deadly Covid-19 outbreak may drive Reliance Jio Infocomm to consider a multi-vendor strategy as its current 4G networks vendor Samsung could be vulnerable to ensuring uninterrupted supplies with the deadly virus spreading to South Korea, analysts and industry executives said.

Industry experts said Jio’s rivals, Vodafone IdeaNSE 1.39 % and Bharti AirtelNSE 1.04 %, who buy a chunk of their networks from China’s Huawei and ZTE, though may see at least a 25% spurt in procurement costs in the next few quarters if driven to bridge shortfalls from European vendors like Ericsson and Nokia, which could weigh on their capex plans unless they pass on to consumers in the form of higher tariffs, said industry experts.