Airtel and Google partner to help grow India’s digital ecosystem

Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), one of India’s premier communications  solutions providers, and Google today announced that they will partner on a long-term, multi-year  agreement to accelerate the growth of India’s digital ecosystem. Together, they will work to bring  best-in-class end-to-end products to serve customer needs, provide quality customer experience, and  bring their expertise to solve problems of affordability, access, and digital inclusion. 

As part of this partnership, Google intends to invest up to $1B, as part of its Google for India  Digitization Fund, which includes equity investment as well as a corpus for potential commercial  agreements, to be identified and agreed on mutually agreeable terms over the course of the next five  years. This will comprise: 

• A $700M equity investment in Bharti Airtel at a price per share of INR 734. ● Up to $300M that will go towards implementing commercial agreements, which will include  investments in scaling Airtel’s offerings that covers a range of devices to consumers via  innovative affordability programs as well as other offerings aimed at accelerating access and  digital inclusion across India’s digital ecosystem. 

This deal will be subject to necessary regulatory approvals. 

The two organizations recognize the importance of a connected India, in empowering businesses as  they progress on their Digital Transformation journeys, and building a strong digital ecosystem for  consumers everywhere. Both organizations are committed to working towards building an open  technology ecosystem that serves customers and businesses with innovative digital services, and have  agreed to jointly explore and invest across a wide spectrum of areas to create digital solutions that  uniquely serve India’s requirements.  

As a part of its first commercial agreement, Airtel and Google will work together to build on Airtel’s  extensive offerings that covers a range of Android-enabled devices to consumers via innovative  affordability programs. Together, the companies will continue to explore further opportunities to  bring down the barriers of owning a smartphone across a range of price points, in partnership with  various device manufacturers.

*1.20% shareholding including partly paid shares 

Under the larger strategic goals of the partnership, both companies will also potentially co-create  India-specific network domain use cases for 5G and other standards, with cutting-edge  implementations. Airtel is already using Google’s 5G-ready Evolved Packet Core & Software Defined  Network platforms, and plans to explore scaling up the deployment of Google’s network virtualisation  solutions to deliver a superior network experience to their customers. 

Both companies will also focus on shaping and growing the cloud ecosystem in India to accelerate  their digital transformation journeys. Airtel serves over one million small and medium businesses with  its enterprise connectivity offering, and this partnership will help accelerate digital adoption. 

Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel said, “Airtel and Google share the vision to grow India’s  digital dividend through innovative products. 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.”  

“Airtel is a leading pioneer shaping India’s digital future, and we are proud to partner on a shared  vision for expanding connectivity and ensuring equitable access to the Internet for more Indians,” said  Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet. “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.”