Airtel plays down report of Google investment, calls it speculation

Bharti Airtel on Tuesday said it “receives interests from high quality investors” for its various business and evaluates them. It however declined to comment on a media report that US software giant Google is likely to make a substantial investment in India's second largest carrier.

“Being a significant player in the telecom and digital industry, the company receives interests from high quality investors and companies for its various businesses…the company evaluates various opportunities of potential investor engagement and takes decisions in a judicious manner,” Airtel said in a response Tuesday to a BSE query.

Airtel termed the Google news report "speculation".


In afternoon trade, the Airtel stock up 4.6% at Rs649.05 on the BSE Tuesday.

The company’s response came a day after Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal, speaking in the context of possible monetisation of Bharti’s digital assets, said “any potential alliances or equity stake offers to key strategic global investors would only be through parent company Airtel.

“Digital assets cannot be sliced and diced, and need to be kept under the mothership, as in Airtel,” he had on Monday at an investor call to discuss Airtel’s upcoming Rs 21,000 crore rights issue.

The investment speculation comes with the Bharti group in the process of restructuring its digital and telecom assets, to be able to create more monetizable opportunities.

Under the new corporate structure, Bharti Airtel will hold all digital assets, as well as the telecom businesses, which are being hived off into a newly-created unit, Airtel Ltd.

With the growth of its digital business, Mittal said Airtel will start reporting revenue from the business separately in a few quarters.

Google, on its part, has already invested a whopping Rs 33,737 crore for a 7.73% stake in Mukesh Ambani-led Jio Platforms, a move that had enabled the global internet giant to jointly develop low-cost Android smartphones with Reliance.

In fact, Reliance Jio’s much awaited budget smartphone, developed with Google, will be launched next month with the aim of attracting a major share of Airtel and Vodafone Idea's 2G subscribers.

Last year, Google had also said it would invest $10 billion in an India Digitisation Fund over the next 5-to-7 years and work with innovative startups towards a shared goal of building a truly inclusive digital economy.

The investment, it had said, would be done through a mix of equity investments, partnerships, and operational, infrastructure, and ecosystem investments.