India's digital ecosystem is set to witness a massive acceleration as Google and Airtel enter into a multi-year partnership.

*Airtel to receive a whopping $1Billion from Google*

As part of its Google for India Digitization Fund, Google will spend up to $1 billion in Bharti Airtel. A $700 million equity investment in Bharti Airtel at a price per share of Rs. 734 is part of the deal. Another $300 million will be spent over the next five years on a variety of commercial deals, including Airtel's intentions to lower the cost of smartphones to empower India's over 350 million feature phone customers.
The partnership enables Google to expand its presence and encourage more people to utilise the internet, which India, with a population of 1.3 billion people, readily provides.

*Gearing India up to become digitally savvy*

The two behemoths join forces to co-create India-specific 5G network use cases with cutting-edge implementations. This would speed up the construction of 5G networks and services in the country, benefiting not only consumers but also the two corporations. The partnership also allows the two tech behemoths to reshape India's cloud environment.

*Partnership to benefit individuals and businesses*

This strategic alliance is expected to strengthen India's digital power by allowing Airtel and Google to collaborate with multiple device makers to lower the barriers to smartphone ownership at various price points. Currently, a large portion of India's 1.3 billion population uses feature phones to access the internet.  Google's commercial and equity involvement in Airtel will help make smartphones more accessible to a wider range of individuals. The collaboration will also enable businesses to move on with their digital transformation efforts and create a strong digital ecosystem for customers.

*Airtel's significant efforts in 5G adoption*

Airtel has practically single-handedly reshaped India's 5G roadmap over the previous five years. Airtel did many ground-breaking experiments in the 5G arena in 2021, after becoming the first operator in the country to test the technology in 2018.  This partnership with Google is expected to improve Airtel's status as a telecom powerhouse in India and aid the company's ambitions to adopt 5G.