Sunil Bharti Mittal discusses UPI, 5G technology with Kenyan President

Bharti Enterprise Chairman Sunil Bharti has discussed India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) technology and 5G technology with Kenyan President William Samoei, sources said. Mittal met the President on Monday in New Delhi.

The meeting saw discussions on UPI and India's digital payment ecosystem, they said. Kenya has extensive usage of mobile currency.

Mittal also backed the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) or the India Stack of technologies to ensure last-mile inclusion and digital adoption.

There is already a considerable amount of interest from various African nations, including Kenya, in knowledge sharing for digital identities, which forms the foundation of our successful DPI.

"One of the key areas discussed was the availability of cultivable and arable land in the region – which would have implications in solving for the breaks in the global food value chain that have been seen over the past few years," sources said.

During India's recently concluded presidency of the G20, which saw the inclusion of the African Union to the bloc, Mittal served as Chair of the B20 India Action Council on African Economic Integration, comprising members from the global business community.

The Council outlined a set of recommendations in furthering the agenda for regional integration of the continent, and as such, attract investments across sectors.

5G Rollout

Airtel Africa is present in 14 countries of Africa. With approximately 20 million customers, Kenya is considered to be among the most important and strategic telecom operations for the company.

Airtel Kenya is the country's second-largest telecom operator after Safaricom and had a market share of 26.3 percent at the end of 2022.
 

Mittal also discussed the company's ongoing 5G rollout in the country, which is the seventh-largest economy in Africa.

In July, the company launched 5G services across 379 sites. Its existing 4G network infrastructure already covered up to 90 percent of the country. Airtel aims to expand the entire 5G coverage to Kenya, making Airtel Money available to every citizen of Kenya.

The company is currently aiming to capture an increasing chunk of the fast-growing home broadband market in the country and is offering home routers at much lower prices, local media has reported.