5G B2B revenues to outpace B2C: Airtel

Bharti Airtel, India's second largest telco, expects that the 5G technology would generate more revenue in the business-to-business (B2B) segment compared to the business-to-consumer (B2C) segment in the coming year or so and is actively engaged with close to 50 companies across multiple industries to co-develop enterprise use cases, a top executive said.

"We have active conversations with close to 50 (companies) across multiple industries to co-develop use cases-from manufacturing to healthcare to banking... in the next year, there is a lot of expectation that 5G will make more money in B2B than B2C," Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, CEO at Airtel Enterprise Business, told ET.

He said 5G for enterprises brings a humongous opportunity to digitise the whole back end including factories, warehouses, supply chain, and ports. "I think 5G will bring a huge opportunity. Every industry is thinking through what problems they could solve through 5G."


The Sunil Mittal-led telecom operator is targeting a 5G roll out in all urban areas by September 2023, while its bigger rival Reliance Jio expects to do the same by May and a pan-India roll out by December. Vodafone Idea, on the other hand, hasn't announced its 5G plans.