Bharti Airtel has announced that search engine giant Google will invest $1 Billion in the company as part of India Digitization Fund. For 700 million dollars Google will acquire 1.28% ownership in Airtel and up to 300 million dollars towards potential multiyear commercial agreements.
The partnership will target on providing access to affordable smartphones in every price range. The companies also want to co-create India specific network domain use cases for 5G and other standards. The partnership will also grow cloud ecosystem across India.
Bharti Airtel will provide 71,176,839 equity shares at a price of Rs 734 per share to Google International LLC. The prices of all shares will aggregate to Rs 5,224.38 crore. Google will also invest 300 million dollars to help Airtel make devices via affordability programs that will help in digitalization of Indian ecosystem.
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The majority of holdings in the company belong to Mittal Family and SingTel. Mittal family roughly owns 24.13 percent while as SingTel owns 31.72 percent in the company making a total of 55.93 percent.
Airtel will make Android enabled devices that are affordable and it will also explore barriers that people face in owning a smartphone.
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 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.”
