Bharti Airtel signs a deal with Amazon web services to expand its cloud business

Airtel has found a new partner to expand the reach of its cloud services business in India, the world’s second-largest internet market. Airtel has signed a deal with Amazon web services to grow the cloud business.

On Wednesday, the e-commerce giant Amazon announced it is partnered with Bharti Airtel, the third-largest telecom operator in India with over 300 million subscribers, to sell a large range of Amazon Web Services(AWS) offerings under Airtel Cloud brand to small, medium, and large-sized businesses(SMB Market) in the country.

Airtel and @awscloud announce strategic collaboration to accelerate the digital transformation of businesses in India through innovative cloud solutions. #cloud #digital @HarmeenM @puneetck

Read more: https://t.co/aMHbOhMaxQ
More about our solutions: https://t.co/F4zsRBbRQH pic.twitter.com/DiO3MxGWpk

— airtel India (@airtelindia) August 5, 2020

The deal could help AWS(Amazon Web Services), which leads the cloud market in India, further grow its dominance in the country. Before this deal, a similar deal is signed between Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom operator, and Google. Besides this deal, another deal has been signed between Facebook, and a roster of other high-profile investors and Microsoft last year to sell cloud services to small businesses. Both companies announced a 10-year partnership to “serve millions of customers.”

Airtel, which serves over 2,500 large enterprises and over 1,000,000 emerging businesses, has signed an identical cloud to cope with Google at the beginning of this year. That partnership is still in place, Airtel said. The Bharti Airtel, India’s largest integrated telecommunications services provider, and Google Cloud made a partnership to serve the evolving needs of various Indian businesses in a very rapidly digitizing economy.

“AWS brings over 175 services to the table. We just about support any workload on the cloud. We have the most important and therefore the most vibrant community of consumers,” President of AWS in India and South Asia, on a call with reporters Wednesday noon.

This deal demonstrates of Airtel’s next move to grow businesses beyond its telecom venture, said Harmeen Mehta, Global CIO and Head of Cloud and Security Business at Airtel, on the call. Last month, Airtel made a partnership with Verizon, TechCrunch’s parent company, to sell BlueJeans video conferencing service to business customers in India.

Nearly half a billion people in India came online last decade. And slowly, small businesses and merchants also are starting to use digital tools, storage services, and accept online payments. This strategy illustrates the phase of cloud adoption in the nation.

India has emerged as one of the emerging leading grounds for cloud services in the recent 5-years. The public cloud services market of the country is estimated to reach $7.1 billion after four years, according to research firm IDC(International Data Corporation).