Airtel has revealed that the money of Google will be utilized to improve the availability of affordable smartphones in all price ranges, putting an opportunity at Reliance Jio that recently launched Jio Phone Next.
Google will invest up to $1 billion into Airtel as the company focuses on the low-cost smartphones
* Google has invested more than one billion dollars into India’s largest mobile operator Airtel.
* Airtel will make use of $700 million to study the low-cost smartphone market in India.
* A maximum of $300 million is allocated to expand 5G offerings in cloud and other ecosystems.
Airtel has announced that Google has invested up to $1 billion which is greater than 7,500 crores, in the telecom sector as the competition for low-cost smartphones gets more intense. The Sunil Mittal-led firm stated that the investment was element of its Google for India Digitisation Fund which Google announced in the year 2020 to increase its efforts in India. Google is investing $700m into Airtel as a trade-off for 1.28 percent ownership. The remaining $300 million could be part of the potential long-term business agreements signed with Google with Airtel.
Google’s renewed curiosity about Airtel will enable the company to navigate the inexpensive smartphones market more efficiently, so that it can concentrate on various aspects in a variety of price points. “As an element of their first commercial partnership, Airtel and Google will collaborate to expand Airtel’s wide range of offerings, which include various Android-enabled devices that are available to consumers via innovative programs for affordability,” said Bharti Airtel in a statement.
The renewed relationship with Airtel and Google could be an attack on Reliance Jio that, last year, unveiled it’s Jio Phone Next as its extremely-low-cost Android phone, in exclusive partnership with Google to create an altered variant of Android operating system, dubbed PragatiOS. Google announced special announcements about PragatiOS that will be essential to India’s low-end smartphone market. Although Airtel hasn’t specified the methods Google can assist it expanding its reach into the smartphone market Airtel could be in the process of planning to move to compete with Jio.
Airtel has also stated that the deal with Google will enable it to keep its existing collaborations that it has with Google and create India-specific domain use cases that support 5G as well as other standards. Airtel has already embraced Google’s 5G-ready Evolved Packaget Core and Software Defined Network (DNN) platforms. It is aiming to speed up the implementation of Google’s virtualisation services “to provide a better customer experience on their network.”
The partnership will also enable Airtel to build and expand its ecosystem of cloud services in India and will aid in accelerating the digital transformation of companies in India. Airtel currently provides over 1 million small and medium enterprises by offering enterprise connectivity.
“Airtel and Google share the same goal to boost India’s digital dividend by introducing innovative products. With our network that is future-proof and digital platforms, as well as our last mile distribution, and payments ecosystem, we are looking forward to working in partnership with Google to expand the breadth and depth of India’s digital ecosystem.” stated Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel.
“Airtel is a pioneer in creating India’s digital future and we’re thrilled to collaborate on a shared plan to expand connectivity and ensuring equal accessibility to Internet in the interest of the majority of Indians,” said Sundar Pichai the Chief Executive Officer of Google and Alphabet.