Google to invest $1 billion in Airtel

New Delhi, January 28

Google will invest as much as $1 billion (approx. Rs 7,500 crore) in Bharti Airtel and pick up 1.28 per cent stake and in scaling up offerings of India’s second-largest mobile phone operator, the telecom major said today.

Alphabet Inc’s Google will pay $700 million (Rs 734 per share) for a 1.28 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel Ltd and the rest towards multi-year plans that will include devices. This will be the second investment by Google, which had two years ago committed to investing $10 billion in India via its digitisation fund over 5 to 7 years through equity deals and tie-up.

It had in July 2020, invested $4.5 billion for a 7.73% stake in billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms.

While the 2020 investment valued Jio Platforms’ equity at Rs 4.36 lakh crore ($58.1 billion), the $700 million investment announced on Friday values Bharti Airtel’s equity at Rs 4.1 lakh crore ($54.7 billion).