The satellite internet company Starlink, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, is one of the largest providers of satellite internet services in the world.
According to a report in the Economic Times of India, the country’s largest telecom operator Vodafone India said on Tuesday that it is not in negotiations to partner with Starlink.
The Bengaluru-based telecom operator said Tuesday that it is not in negotiations to partner with the satellite internet unit of billionaire Elon Musk, Starlink, sending its stock down 5%.
The company’s statement came after its shares soared in the last two trading sessions on what BusinessWorld described as “market bets” that Musk is interested in buying a stake in Vodafone Idea to facilitate Starlink’s entry into India.
On Monday, the Mumbai Stock Exchange (BSE), where the company’s shares are listed, asked the company to comment on the BusinessWorld report.
We wish to clarify that the company has not entered into any such discussions with the party named. We are unaware of the source of the reported news. According to a statement released by the company,
The BusinessWorld report came out on Friday following a 21% surge in Vodafone’s shares. On Monday, Vodafone surged another 6% as the stock saw an average daily volume of around 1.7billion shares, the highest level in nearly two years.
Shares of Vodafone Idea went into a bearish spiral after the company issued a statement on Tuesday afternoon, sending the stock plunging by 5% amid a massive 1.3 billion share turnover.
Vodafone, which is based in the United Kingdom and whose Indian arm merged with Idea Cellular, a subsidiary of the Aditya birla group, in 2018 to create Vodafone India, has teamed up with Starlink’s competitor, Amazon.com’s Kuiper, for internet connectivity in Europe and Africa.
On the domestic front, Jio is the top telecom service provider in the country, attracting subscribers away from the debt-plagued Vodabone Idea (which has not made a profit since its inception).
