Airtel, Google Cloud partner to boost collaboration, digital transformation

Bharti Airtel and Google Cloud on Monday announced a partnership to serve the evolving needs of millions of Indian businesses in a rapidly digitising economy.

Airtel will offer G Suite to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in India as part of its integrated ICT portfolio.

G Suite is a set of intelligent apps-Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar and more-designed with real-time collaboration and machine intelligence to bring people together and help them work smarter and safer.

This latest agreement will provide a platform for both companies to tap growth opportunities in India, which ranks among the fastest-growing economies and has the second-highest number of internet users in the world.

Airtel serves over 2,500 large businesses and over five lakh SMBs and technology startups across India.

"With its growing economy and adoption of digital services, India offers one of the biggest opportunities to serve customers with innovative solutions," said Bharti Airtel's Managing Director and CEO Gopal Vittal.

"We are pleased to further strengthen our deep relationship with Google Cloud and build products and services aimed at transforming Indian businesses," he said in a statement.

According to a recent report by NASSCOM, the Indian cloud market could cross seven billion dollars by 2022 and Indian Software as a Service (SaaS) market could top the 3.5 billion dollar mark.

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud said Indian companies are making a massive transformation to the cloud.

"The combination of G Suite's collaboration and productivity tools with Airtel's digital business offerings will help accelerate digital innovations for thousands of Indian businesses.