American internet giant Alphabet Inc's Google has announced an investment of up to $1 billion in partnership with Delhi-based telecom company Bharti Airtel. This includes a $700 million equity investment in Bharti Airtel for a 1.28 per cent stake, and up to $300 million towards potential multi-year commercial agreements.
What have been Google’s previous
investments in India?
In addition to the latest investment in Airtel, Google has also invested
in the telecom company’s rival Reliance Jio a sum of $4.5 billion. Further,
Google has backed more than a dozen startups in India through its accelerator
programme.
What does the deal with Airtel entail?
Google said it intends to invest up to $1 billion 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 five years. 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), and up to $300
million that will go towards implementing commercial agreements.
Google's investment includes a $700 million equity investment in Airtel at 734 rupees ($9.77) per share and up to $300 million towards implementing commercial agreements, including investments in expanding Airtel's products and services, the companies said.
The
investment will help Airtel develop its devices, home broadband, data centers,
cloud adoption and, over a period of time, develop 5G networks, Bharti Airtel's
CEO, India & South Asia, Gopal Vital told analysts on a conference call on
Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment