Google has announced an investment of up to $1 billion in India's Bharti Airtel as a part of its Google for India Digitization Fund. The company will invest will include equity investment as well as a corpus for potential commercial agreements. The companies will work together to build an ecosystem for consumers. Airtel is one of the largest telecom service providers and serves over one million small and medium businesses with its enterprise connectivity offering.
According to an official statement, the investment of $1 billion, will comprise $700 million for a 1.28 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel, and up to $300 million towards potential multi-year commercial agreements. The investment is subjected to be identified and agreed on mutually agreeable terms over the course of five years.
Airtel in its blog post mentioned that both the companies will work together to build on Airtel’s extensive offerings that will provide a range of Android-enabled devices to consumers via innovative affordability programmes. The telecom service provider will also work to bring affordable smartphones, in partnership with various device manufacturers.
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.”
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.”
Earlier in 2020, Google announced investments of USD 4.5 billion for a 7.73% stake in Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Jio network.
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