Google Invests Rs 7500 Crore In Airtel; Can Launch A Co-Branded Smartphone To Challenge JioPhone!

• Bharti Airtel shares spiked up 6% on January 28 after the company announced a partnership with Google.
• Bharti Airtel will issue 71.2 million shares to Google on a preferential basis at Rs. 734 per share.
• Bharti Airtel and Google might collaborate to make an affordable smartphone to rival JioPhone.

Bharti Airtel shares spiked up 6% in trade on January 28 after the company announced a partnership with the US technology giant Google. However, they pared with most of their gains to trade 0.7 percent higher at Rs. 711.8 on the National Stock Exchange at 09:34 AM.

Bharti Airtel is going to issue shares to google on a preferential basis

Bharti Airtel is going to issue 71.2 million shares of the company to Google on a preferential basis at Rs. 734 per share. This is a premium of 4% of the closing price on January 27. After the preferential allotment of equity shares Google will come to own a 1.28% stake in India’s second-largest telecom service provider. Besides this near $700-million stake purchase, Google will also invest approximately $300 million to implement various commercial agreements which will also include investments in scaling Airtel’s offerings.

“As a part of its first commercial agreement, Airtel and Google will work together to build on Airtel’s extensive offerings that covers a range of Android-enabled devices to consumers via innovative affordability programs,” Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

An affordable smartphone collaboration

The telecom service provider has also hinted that they might collaborate on an affordable smartphone to rival Reliance Jio’s JioPhone Next. “The companies will continue to explore further opportunities to bring down the barriers of owning a smartphone across a range of price points, in partnership with various device manufacturers,” Bharti Airtel stated.

Bharti Airtel has also said that it will also be scaling up Google’s network virtualization solutions and will potentially co-create an India-specific network domain for use cases of 5G network.

Their commercial and equity investment in Airtel is going to be a continuation of their Google for India Digitization Fund’s which strives to increase access to smartphones, enhance connectivity to support new business models, and help companies on their digital transformation journey, said Sundar Pichai the chief executive officer at Google and Alphabet.

source-https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/stocks/bharti-airtel-surges-then-pares-gains-as-google-to-buy-700-million-stake-7994971.html/amp?utm_campaign=fullarticle&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=inshorts