Google’s $1 billion investment in Airtel:
Internet giant Google will invest USD 1 billion in telecom major Bharti Airtel. It includes equity investment as well as a corpus for potential commercial agreements to be identified and agreed on mutually agreeable terms for the next five years.
India Digitization Fund:
Google’s investment is part of its Google for India Digitization Fund. Out of the total investment, USD 300 million will go towards implementing commercial agreements. It will include investments in scaling Airtel’s offerings via innovative affordability programs as well as other offerings aimed at accelerating access and digital inclusion across India’s digital ecosystem. This will comprise the $700 million equity investment in Bharti Airtel at a price per share of Rs 734 (the scrip opened trading on Friday at Rs 718 on the BSE).
Co-creation on 5G:
Under the larger strategic goals of the partnership, both companies will work on the co-creation of India-specific use cases for 5G and other standards. Airtel is already using Google’s 5G-ready Evolved Packet Core & Software Defined Network platforms. It further plans to explore scaling up the deployment of Google’s network virtualisation solutions to deliver a “superior network experience” to their customers.
A commercial arrangement:
The commercial arrangement includes the development of India’s cloud ecosystem, which is one of the strategic interest areas and business drivers for Google. The partnership will enable Google to reach out to over 1 million small and medium businesses that are currently served by Airtel. As a part of its first commercial agreement, Airtel and Google will work together to build on Airtel’s extensive offerings that cover a range of Android-enabled devices to consumers via innovative affordability programs.
Google’s previous investments in India:
Google had in 2020 announced investments of USD 4.5 billion for a 7.73% stake in Mukesh Ambani-led Jio Platforms. Moreover, Google had backed more than a dozen startups in India through its accelerator programme.
