Amazon Might be Considering 5% Stake in Bharti Airtel

The American multinational conglomerate, Amazon, is planning to buy a 5% stake worth $2 billion in Bharti Airtel. The e-commerce giant has already invested about $6.5 billion in India. Unnamed sources reveal that the two companies are at an early stage of discussion.

Bharti Airtel revealed that they constantly work with media and digital players to bring forth their services and content to their customers. Other than that, they had no other activity to report. Amazon, on the other hand, did not make any comments.

Amazon seeking interest to invest in Bharti Airtel comes soon after it was known that Google was inclined in purchasing stakes at Vodafone Idea. Facebook has taken a lead already and bought a 9.99% worth stake in Reliance Jio Platforms, India’s leading telecom operator. Local media also has information about Microsoft holding talks with Reliance Jio Platforms as they are interested in investing $2 billion in the telecom company.

A former Vodafone Global Group MD and currently the COO and Partner of Accloud, Amit Pau, says that Facebook’s huge investment reveals that India is a new and significant ‘battleground for Big Tech’.

Facebook targeted Amazon in Indian e-commerce by partnering with Reliance Jio. This is just the beginning of a classic face-off between the largest companies of the world that will not allow digitization to grant great services to Indian consumers but also boost the Indian economy, Pau added.

These American companies have partnered with multiple telecom operators in India, which is a profitable market for them, and they intend on expanding their market in the nation over the years.

Microsoft’s partnership with Reliance Jio Platforms has already brought Microsoft Office 365 at a nominal rate to millions of small businesses. Google, too, has a similar partnership with Bharti Airtel and is offering Google Cloud suite to the users.

Conclusion:
Amazon leads the Indian market for cloud services, but hasn’t yet partnered with any telecom operator. If this partnership would happen then it would be interesting to know what products or services would be offered to the users by Bharti Airtel along with Amazon.