Google to invest $1Bn in Airtel

Google will invest up to $1 billion in Bharti Airtel through a mix of equity and commercial partnerships in areas like affordable smartphones, networks, and cloud. Google will invest the amount as part of its Google for India Digitization Fund in the country's second largest telecom services provider.

The investment includes a $700 million equity investment in Bharti Airtel at a price per share of Rs 734 and $300 million that will go towards implementing commercial agreements for potential investment in areas like smart phone access, networks, and cloud.

The investment will help Airtel to offer a wide range of affordable devices to consumers. The company is also using software tools and data models that predict customer purchase trends and allows for targeted offers.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel, said, “With our future ready network, digital platforms, last mile distribution and payments ecosystem, we look forward to working closely with Google to increase the depth and breadth of India’s digital ecosystem.”

The other two areas of collaboration are 5G and cloud. Both companies will potentially co-create India-specific network domain use cases for 5G and other standards. Airtel uses Google’s 5G-ready Evolved Packet Core and software defined network platforms.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said, “Our commercial and equity investment in Airtel is a continuation of our Google for India Digitization Fund’s efforts to increase access to smartphones, enhance connectivity to support new business models, and help companies on their digital transformation journey”.