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06-12-2024
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI: India’s Bharti Airtel, opens new tab on Wednesday signed a “multi-billion” dollar deal with Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson, opens new tab to boost its 4G and 5G coverage in the world’s second-largest smartphone market.
Under the deal, which Reuters reported in October, Bharti Airtel will buy and deploy equipment from Ericsson likely in 2025. The companies did not disclose exact financial terms of the deal.
Demand from India’s 5G market started to skyrocket in 2023, as Bharti Airtel and Jio, the telecom unit of Reliance Industries (RELI.NS), opens new tab, started to scale up 5G services.
Ericsson, Bharti Airtel’s partner of more than two decades, will deploy centralized radio access network (RAN) and Open RAN-ready solutions, Bharti Airtel said in a press release.
Open RAN allows mobile operators to mix and match equipment from various suppliers, potentially increasing flexibility.
Ericsson will also upgrade the software of its deployed 4G radios, it said.
“This deployment will enable us to further improve the speed, reliability, and coverage of our network,” Bharti Airtel’s Chief Technology Officer Randeep Sekhon said in the release.
The company did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The deal comes after Ericsson won part of a $3.6 billion contract to sell 5G equipment to Vodafone Idea, opens new tab earlier this year. It shared the contract with Nokia, opens new tab and Samsung.
The new deals are expected to boost Ericsson’s revenue next year, after a big fall in contracts from India in the first half of the year.
Nokia also signed a “multi-billion” dollar deal with Bharti Airtel last month.
Finnish telecom equipment supplier Nokia, opens new tab on Wednesday said it had won a “multi-billion” dollar deal with India’s Bharti Airtel for delivery of 4G and 5G equipment.
Sources familiar with the talks told Reuters last month Nokia and Bharti were nearing a deal worth several billion dollars to expand Bharti’s network in India.
Nokia’s Swedish rival Ericsson had already won a deal of similar size with Bharti earlier in October.
India last year helped Nokia and Ericsson offset weakness in demand from US customers. However, the volume of orders from India slowed down significantly after a growth spurt last year. India’s Vodafone Idea on Sunday concluded a $3.6 billion deal with mobile and network manufacturers Nokia, opens new tab, Ericsson, opens new tab and Samsung, opens new tab for supply of equipment over a period of three years, it said in a statement to exchanges.
“The deal marks the first step towards the roll-out of the company’s transformative three-year capex plan of $6.6 billion (550 billion rupees),” the company said.
“The capex program is directed towards expanding the 4G population coverage from 1.03 billion to 1.2 billion, launching 5G in key markets and capacity expansion in line with data growth,” it said. Vodafone Idea, opens new tab, formed by a merger between the Indian arms of UK’s Vodafone Group, opens new tab and Aditya Birla Group’s Idea Cellular in 2018, has posted a loss in every quarter as it lost market share to larger rivals Bharti Airtel, opens new tab and Reliance Jio.
Earlier in 2024, the company sold shares to institutional investors, raised funds through the country’s largest-ever follow-on public offer and is also in talks with lenders as part of its plans to raise around $5 billion to roll out 5G network service, expand 4G coverage and regain market share.
