Delays predicted for Indian 3G licence auction

Reports are circulating that the auction of 3G licences in India may be delayed from its planned opening date of January 30th.

The reason is thought to be the Indian government's desire to double the base price of the country-wide licences, which were due to have a reserve price of 20.2 billion rupees (around £283 million).

However, increasing the price would delay the start of the auctions, due to the need for approval from the Indian telecoms regulator.

There could be a knock-on effect for the mobile games market. Western developers and publishers have long seen India as a potentially big market for mobile games (and, of course, local firms have been selling games there for many years).

All the evidence points to 3G being a big factor in increasing the number of people downloading games to their phones, so the sooner the auction process is concluded, the better from the games industry's point of view.