Telcos wary of huge 5G costs amid China row

The central government’s move asking state-owned BSNL and MTNL not to purchase Chinese-made equipment to upgrade their mobile networks has triggered fears among private firms that they may have to follow suit.

Telecom operators Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Idea Ltd may be hit hard if they have to substitute 5G Chinese equipment that provide significant cost advantage. Only a handful of companies—Ericsson, Nokia Networks, Samsung, Huawei and ZTE—manufacture 5G equipment. The last two are Chinese.

Industry estimates peg the market for Indian telecom equipment to be around ₹12,000 crore annually, of which Chinese vendors account for roughly a fourth.