Airtel & Vodafone-Idea May Join Forces, Create A New Company To Fight Reliance Jio

Jio’s expansion and popularity in India is unstoppable, as, in the month of September, they were the only telecom firm to add new users. Both Airtel and Vodafone-Idea lost crores of users in the same month.

The presence and dominance of Jio have triggered unprecedented consolidations in the telecom space: Vodafone-Idea merger is no doubt the biggest among them all.

However, now Airtel and Vodafone-Idea may join forces to fight the mighty Jio, and this can change everything.

What will be this partnership all about? How will they take on Jio with this new arrangement? Keep reading to find out more!

Will Airtel Join Forces With Vodafone-Idea?

As per an unnamed top official from Airtel, they are now open to join forces with Vodafone-Idea and ensure more profits and revenues to defeat Jio by March end.

This alleged partnership will most probably happen in the telecom infrastructure space, rather than in the operations or services space.

In the past as well, Airtel and Vodafone had shared telecom infrastructure and towers, and this can be a new start to their old partnership.

This time, Jio will be the catalyst.

How Will This Work?

As per the information available, Airtel and Vodafone-Idea may float a new company which will be solely working on the optical fiber niche, which can also include towers and networks.

Once this company is floated, revenues can be generated as well, which will help both Airtel and Vodafone-Idea to fight Jio’s onslaught. 5G is about to hit India, and every telecom company and ISP will need services of an optical fiber network.

Immense opportunity for monetization.

The unnamed official said, “We will be delighted to share and create one company. We have already built a lot of fibre with Vodafone Idea and over the past two years, a lot of sharing has happened between the two companies.”

There has been no official comment from Airtel or Vodafone-Idea regarding this update.

Is This Partnership Even Needed?

Strategically speaking, both Airtel and Vodafone-Idea are gasping for air, as Jio is snatching away market share at an unprecedented pace.

As shared earlier, Jio was the only telco to add new users in September, while Airtel and Vodafone, Idea lost their existing customers.

In order to increase ARPU, Airtel and Vodafone are now forcing the users to recharge monthly, and this is causing even more harm to them, as more and more users are now ditching their services, and opting for Jio or BSNL.

Even Airtel had to slash their tariff for 28-day validity plans, due to these reasons.

Hence, if Airtel and Vodafone-Idea want to beat Jio in 2019, then they will need to do something dramatic, and out of the box.

And maybe this new partnership in optical fiber space holds the secret.

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