Shares of telecom stocks – Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea were trading higher on Friday as the 5G spectrum auction entered its fourth day.

The move comes amid news that the government received bids of around Rs 1.5 lakh crore at the close of the 16th round of auctions on Thursday – a new record and above the previous high of Rs 1.09 lakh crore at auctions in 2015.
The telco’s shares were up 1-2% on the BSE at 1:52 pm.

The big 5G spectrum auction started on Tuesday, with participation from Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Adani Group.

In the country’s largest ever spectrum auction, 72 GHz of 5G airwaves was offered worth Rs 4.3 lakh crore for 20 years. The foreign brokerage firm said in a report by Nomura that premiums for 5G services could soon boost average revenue per user (ARPU) for telcos.

ARPU measures each user’s achievement and is a key metric that telcos can monitor. The brokerage believes that 5G tariff plans will be a key monitorable factor in the near term.

With smartphones priced above Rs 15,000, telcos are likely to charge more for 5G than 4G as it may offer higher speeds and initially be accepted by high-end customers.