As of Friday, the 14th day of the 5G auction, bids totaled NT$74.642 billion, the National Communications Commission said in a statement on its Web site. Bidding would exceed market expectations, as there is limited space in the most coveted 3.5GHz bandwidth, Yuanta said. Other bandwidths are likely to be harder to commercialize due to equipment unavailability, which should intensify bidding in the prime bandwidths, Yuanta said. “As such, we expect even more brutal competition when the auction enters the next stage, when operators will be bidding for shares of the 3.5GHz bandwidth,” Lee said. With competition among telecoms expected to intensify as they seek a leading position in the 5G era, while given the limited availability of models to monetize 5G, investors might have a poor appetite for telecom stocks after the auction, Yuanta said.
