BHARTIARTL

** Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS invests $2.2 billion in its financial arm over the next few years to step up its push into digital lending

** CITI ("Buy," PT: 2,380 rupees) says the capital infusion is a natural adjacency to develop BRTI's next growth engine and diversify its portfolio

** Brokerage adds that it does not expect the foray to materially weigh on BRTI's cash flows, considering its upcoming rights issue payment and free cash flow generation

** Morgan Stanley ("Overweight," PT: 2,450 rupees) says BRTI has seen "reasonable success" in operating its loan service platform over the last 2 years, and the new capital infusion is a step to diversify further into financial services

** Adds, while current investments will increase overall capex intensity, it will also build additional revenue streams with potential value creation

** BRTI down 3.2% on the day

** Avg rating of 29 analysts on BRTI at "Buy"; median PT is 2,375 rupees - data compiled by LSEG

** YTD, stock down 8.2% vs Nifty 50's .NSEI 2.4% drop

(Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru)

(([email protected]))

Feb 23 (Reuters) - Indian telecom major Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS said on Monday it plans to inject 200 billion rupees ($2.2 billion) into its financial arm over the next few years, marking a major push into digital lending.

($1 = 90.8850 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Aleef Jahan in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)

(([email protected]))

Feb 20 (Reuters) - Bharti Airtel Ltd BRTI.NS:

• ZSCALER AND BHARTI AIRTEL LAUNCH AI & CYBER THREAT RESEARCH CENTER

Source text: ID:nNSESprNr

Further company coverage: BRTI.NS

(([email protected];))

Feb 17 (Reuters) - Bharti Airtel Ltd BRTI.NS:

• UNIT RECEIVES CERTIFICATE AS TYPE II NON-DEPOSIT NBFC FROM RBI

Source text: ID:nBSE5gGdbD

Further company coverage: BRTI.NS

(([email protected];;))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, Feb 16 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Mukesh Ambani's endless quest for scale in India may be the top challenge his advisors led by Kotak Mahindra Bank and Morgan Stanley face in trying to secure the tycoon's telecom operator a sought-after $170 billion valuation in its upcoming blockbuster initial public offering.

Demand for Jio Platforms stock will almost certainly be strong, not least because the company will end up as a constituent of the country's benchmark Nifty 50 Index .NSEI. Whether it deserves to be valued more richly than its top rival is less clear, however.

Size wise, Jio clearly trumps its top rival. Its 515 million total subscribers are more numerous than Bharti Airtel's BRTI.NS 466 million customers in India and its 25 million base of users for home broadband, which it's still rolling out, is nearly twice as large. Beyond that, things look less clear cut.

Ambani's firm is growing earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation at 17% year-on-year, impressive but slower than the 27% EBITDA increase at Airtel's India business. Profits at the duo are robust only because the tycoon's price wars tipped the sector into a quasi-duopoly over the past decade.

Jio's average revenue per user of 214 rupees ($2.36) a month also lags Airtel's 259 rupees. That's partly explained by the fact that Airtel calculates the metric only for subscribers who have made a payment in the last 30 days, while Jio includes its entire subscriber base. It underscores the company's focus on volumes.

That makes the two halves of the duopoly look more evenly matched. Yet a $170 billion valuation would equate to 42 times Jio's earnings for the year ending March 2027 according to estimates compiled by Visible Alpha. Airtel trades at around 30 times.

What's more, Ambani's next target is to dominate artificial intelligence services and reduce inferencing costs in India to the lowest in the world to make "AI available everywhere for everyone". That raises the prospects of more price wars.

To be sure, Reliance Industries RELI.NS executives are talking up a proprietary in-house technology stack. This, they say, cuts the company's reliance on foreign equipment, is drawing interest from global operators and will give Jio an edge in scaling up growth drivers; users pay more for broadband than mobile, and its enterprise solutions from cloud services to internet of things are at an early stage of adoption.

If Jio can realise these advantages, it may be able to pursue scale and deliver superior shareholder value. For now, though, with the company generating 89% of its operating revenue from plain old telecom services, bankers will be asking prospective investors to take a leap of faith.

Follow Shritama Bose on LinkedIn and X.

CONTEXT NEWS

Jio Platforms, the telecom unit of Reliance Industries, is preparing for a Mumbai initial public offering.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Aditya Srivastav)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on BOSE/[email protected]))

Updates with more detail on results

Feb 12 (Reuters) - Singapore Telecommunications STEL.SI reported a 9.5% rise in its third-quarter underlying net profit on Thursday, driven by strong contributions from India's Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS and Thailand's Advanced Info Service (AIS) ADVANC.BK.

SingTel reported an underlying net profit of S$744 million ($589.77 million) for the three-month period ended December 31, compared with S$680 million a year earlier.

Contributions from regional associates' post-tax profits rose more than 15% to S$529 million, led by Airtel and AIS.

SingTel also booked a net exceptional gain of S$1.15 billion from selling a 0.8% stake in Airtel as part of an asset‑restructuring plan.

That boosted its net profit on a statutory basis by 44% to S$1.89 billion.

SingTel-owned Optus, Australia's no. 2 telecom firm, reported a 5% rise in operating earnings for the quarter. That, along with robust growth in its information technology services division, NCS, helped offset weaker performance by its domestic business.

($1 = 1.2615 Singapore dollars)

(Reporting by Kumar Tanishk in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)

(([email protected]; X: @thatstanishk;))

Feb 12 (Reuters) - Singapore Telecommunications STEL.SI reported a 9.5% rise in its third-quarter underlying net profit on Thursday, driven by strong contributions from regional associates, India's Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS and Thailand's Advanced Info Service ADVANC.BK.

SingTel reported an underlying net profit of S$744 million ($589.77 million) for the three months ended December 31, compared with S$680 million a year earlier.

($1 = 1.2615 Singapore dollars)

(Reporting by Kumar Tanishk in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)

(([email protected]; X: @thatstanishk;))

** Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS posted seventh consecutive quarterly profit jump as subscribers upgraded to higher-margin telecom plans

** Shares of India's second-largest mobile carrier by number of users trading flat on the day

ARPU GROWTH DRIVES MARGINS, BOOSTS FREE CASH FLOW

** Macquarie ("Outperform", PT: 2250 rupees) says co's third-quarter was operationally in line, supported by ARPU-led margin expansion and strong free cash flow

** Goldman Sachs ("Buy", raises PT to 2250 rupees from 2230 rupees) notes a steady quarter with improving free cash flow, resilient wireless growth and easing capex intensity

** ICICI Securities highlights co's resilient India wireless performance, steady ARPU growth, margin expansion and lower net debt on strong cash generation

** Jefferies ("buy", revises PT to 2575 rupees from 2760 rupees) says third-quarter results were broadly in line, with profit growth driven by margin expansion, strong Africa performance and robust free cash flow

(Reporting by Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru)

(([email protected] | X: https://twitter.com/SurbhiMisra_ |;))

Feb 5 (Reuters) - Bharti Airtel Ltd BRTI.NS:

• Q3 CONSOL NET PROFIT 66.31 BILLION RUPEES

• Q3 CONSOL REV FROM OPS 539.82 BLN RUPEES; IBES EST. 536.01 BLN RUPEES

• Q3 MOBILE ARPU 259 RUPEES

• CONSOL EXCEPTIONAL CHARGE OF 2.57 BLN RUPEES IN Q3

• CONSOL NET DEBT EXCLUDING LEASE OBLIGATIONS AT 1.12 TRLN RUPEES AT DEC-END

Further company coverage: BRTI.NS

(([email protected];;))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Ujjaini Dutta

BENGALURU, Feb 4 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Artificial intelligence giants should brace for a lengthy showdown in India. OpenAI and peers are pushing cheap plans at individuals and courting firms in the world's most populous country. With over 800 million internet users and plenty of data, the market is a tantalising prize. But prying open corporate budgets and consumer wallets will be a slog.

OpenAI in August launched a subscription plan for ChatGPT at 399 rupees a month, or just $4.50 - a fraction of the average $20 monthly subscription cost in the United States - with the first year free from November. Alphabet's Google GOOGL.O teamed up with India's largest telecoms provider, Reliance Jio, months later to offer its 500 million plus users bargain prices to access the U.S. titan's Gemini AI models, charging nothing for the first 18 months - similar to Perplexity's tie-up with Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS.

India is now OpenAI's second-largest market by users after the United States; Sam Altman recently predicted it may soon become its biggest. The OpenAI boss will make his second visit to India in about a year in February, according to TechCrunch, citing sources. That will coincide with a tech summit in New Delhi where Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Nvidia's NVDA.O Jensen Huang and other executives are due to appear. Besides India's vast online population, second after China, the country also offers AI labs troves of multilingual data to train models plus a deep talent pool of software engineers and developers.

OpenAI projects 220 million users globally will pay for ChatGPT by 2030, according to The Information, citing sources. Assume a tenth of those subscribers are in India - roughly the same estimated share as ChatGPT's India users as a percentage of the total - that implies annualised sales of only $1.2 billion on the South Asian country's current subscription offers. That's a small part of OpenAI's total annualised revenue, which topped $20 billion last year.

Raising prices for Indian consumers in the near term looks tough given the intensifying competition. To generate more revenue, it will be crucial to tap enterprise customers - a departure from the United States, where the company still relies on consumers for most of its sales. But in India - and across Asia - traditional cloud computing giants like Microsoft MSFT.O and Amazon.com AMZN.O are established and are planningambitious expansion plans. Moreover, even though companies are embracing AI, more than 95% of Indian firms surveyed by EY allocate less than a fifth of their IT budgets to AI.

In a sign of how crucial courting Indian companies will be, Anthropic, which owns the popular Claude coding agent, last month appointed a former Microsoft India executive who had "led enterprise AI adoption" as head of its Bengaluru office. The battle for India is just getting underway.

Follow Ujjaini Dutta on LinkedIn and X.

CONTEXT NEWS

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is planning to visit India in mid-February, his first visit to the country in nearly a year, TechCrunch reported on January 23, citing sources. The visit coincides with the country's inaugural India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi that will run between February 16 and 20.

In October, Google offered its $400 Gemini AI Pro subscription for free for 18 months to 500 million customers of Reliance Jio, India's biggest telecom player. OpenAI began offering its ChatGPT Go subscription free to users in India for one year starting November 4.

(Editing by Robyn Mak; Production by Aditya Srivastav)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on DUTTA/[email protected]))

Jan 27 (Reuters) - Indian telecom operator Vodafone Idea VODA.NS reported a narrower fiscal third-quarter loss on Tuesday, helped by higher data consumption and more users upgrading to higher-paying 4G and 5G plans.

The debt-laden telecom operator's consolidated loss after tax narrowed to 52.86 billion rupees ($577.53 million) in the quarter ended December 31, from a loss of 66.09 billion rupees a year earlier.

Vodafone Idea has been investing in its 4G and 5G infrastructure in recent years to improve service quality and stem subscriber losses.

Average revenue per user, a key industry metric, rose 7.3% year-on-year to 186 rupees. The increase followed a 2% rise in 4G and 5G subscribers and a 26.7% jump in average data usage among those users.

However, Vodafone's ARPU still trails rivals Reliance Jio RELJ.NS's 211.4 rupees and Bharti Airtel's BRTI.NS 256 rupees.

Earlier this month, the government capped Vodafone Idea's long-pending adjusted gross revenue dues at $13.79 million annually over the next six years, easing near-term cash flow pressures.

The company on Tuesday said its AGR dues stood frozen at 876.95 billion rupees as of December 31, adding that the amount remains subject to reassessment.

India's third-largest telecom provider, 49% owned by the Indian government, was formed in 2018 through a merger between the Indian arm of UK's Vodafone Group VOD.L and Aditya Birla Group's Idea Cellular.

The company has posted losses every quarter since and has ceded market share to market leaders Jio and Airtel, as it struggles with more than $22 billion in debt and a network rollout that lags larger rivals.

Overall revenue rose year-on-year to 113.23 billion rupees, beating analysts' estimates of 112.77 billion rupees.

($1 = 91.5270 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Aleef Jahan and Nishit Navin in Bengaluru; Editing by Ronojoy Mazumdar and Tasim Zahid)

(([email protected]))

By Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil

NEW DELHI, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's telecom company is among those urging the government to act over what they describe as monopolistic practices at Gautam Adani's new Mumbai airport, saying the facility is blocking operators from providing mobile connectivity, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

Adani-run Navi Mumbai International Airport denied the allegations, but the dispute highlights the growing rivalry between India's two richest men, whose conglomerates increasingly compete across sectors from green energy to data centres.

The airport, located on Mumbai’s outskirts, began operations in December after being inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is the latest addition to Adani’s portfolio of eight airports, with plans for more.

Within days of opening, passengers complained on social media about poor or non-existent mobile coverage and raised privacy concerns after spotting billboards offering free airport Wi-Fi.

TELECOM OPERATORS DEMAND ACCESS TO AIRPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

A January 13 letter from Cellular Operators Association of India to India's government states Adani's airport must grant access to install equipment as required by Indian regulations for public entities, which includes airports, and that a denial has created a "monopolistic bottleneck".

In its statement, Navi Mumbai International Airport said it had deployed “state-of-the-art solutions” and that operators could partner with an entity managing the airport’s in-building network infrastructure.

COAI, which represents Ambani's Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS and Vodafone Idea VODA.NS, said it had no comment beyond the letter, which is not public.

The companies and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, did not respond to Reuters queries.

PASSENGER DISTRESS: 'WE CAN'T CALL PEOPLE'

Jio leads India's telecom market with over 500 million subscribers, followed by Airtel at 314 million and Vodafone at nearly 128 million.

Online, passengers have voiced frustration that the airport’s Wi-Fi cannot be accessed without mobile coverage because login requires a one-time password sent via WhatsApp.

"You'll be thankful to see free Wi-Fi banners, thinking you can at least book cabs now. You go to the Wi-Fi network and try to log in, but it requires an OTP (one time password)," X user adarsxh_baab wrote on Jan. 13.

Adani's statement added that when network coverage is left to individual operators, they often provide "sub-optimal coverage" in sensitive areas such as baggage handling zones.

COAI also said the airport is demanding around $102,000 per operator each month - nearly $5 million annually for four carriers - to use its centralised network, an allegation Adani denied.

"We can't call people, pay for cabs or even book anything. If you're a solo traveller it's hell," X user Srihita Vanguri wrote on the platform on Sunday.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil, Editing by Louise Heavens)

(([email protected];))

Dec 24 (Reuters) -

• BHARTI AND WARBURG PINCUS WILL COLLECTIVELY OWN A 49% STAKE IN HAIER INDIA- STATEMENT

• HAIER GROUP WILL RETAIN A 49% OWNERSHIP STAKE IN HAIER INDIA - STATEMENT

Further company coverage: 600690.SS

(([email protected];;))

By Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil

NEW DELHI, Dec 5 (Reuters) - India's government is reviewing a telecom industry proposal to force smartphone firms to enable satellite location tracking that is always activated for better surveillance, a move opposed by Apple, Google and Samsung due to privacy concerns, according to documents, emails and five sources.

A fierce privacy debate erupted in India this week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government was forced to rescind an order requiring smartphone makers to preload a state-run cyber safety app on all devices after activists and politicians raised concerns about potential snooping.

For years, the Modi administration has been concerned its agencies do not get precise locations when legal requests are made to telecom firms during investigations. Under the current system, the firms are limited to using cellular tower data that can only provide an estimated area location, which can be off by several meters.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents Reliance's RELI.NS Jio and Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS, has proposed that precise user locations should only be provided if the government orders smartphone makers to activate A-GPS technology - which uses satellite signals and cellular data - according to a June internal federal IT ministry email.

That would require location services to always be activated in smartphones with no option for users to disable them. Apple AAPL.O, Samsung 005930.KS and Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google have told New Delhi that should not be mandated, said three of the sources who have direct knowledge of the deliberations.

A measure to track device-level location has no precedent anywhere else in the world, lobbying group India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA), which represents both Apple and Google, wrote in a confidential July letter to the government, which was viewed by Reuters.

"The A-GPS network service ... (is) not deployed or supported for location surveillance," said the letter, which added that the measure "would be a regulatory overreach."

'DEDICATED SURVEILLANCE DEVICE'

India's home ministry had scheduled a meeting of top smartphone industry executives to discuss the matter on Friday but it was postponed, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said. On Thursday, Reuters sent questions related to this topic to the ministry.

India's IT and home ministries, which are both analysing the telecom industry's proposal, did not respond to Reuters queries.

Apple, Samsung, Google, Reliance and Airtel did not respond to requests for comment. Lobby groups ICEA and COAI also did not respond.

At this point, no policy decision has been made by the IT or home ministries.

Taking advantage of A-GPS technology - which is typically only turned on when certain apps are running or when emergency calls are being made - could provide authorities with location data precise enough that a user can be tracked to within about a meter, according to technology experts.

"This proposal would see phones operate as a dedicated surveillance device," said Junade Ali, a digital forensics expert associated with Britain's Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Cooper Quintin, a security researcher at the U.S.-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he had not heard of any such proposal elsewhere, calling it "pretty horrifying."

Governments worldwide routinely seek new ways to better track cellphone users' movements or data. Russia has mandated the installation of a state-backed communications app on all mobile phones in the country.

TELCOS VS SMARTPHONE FIRMS

India is the world's second-biggest mobile market with 735 million smartphones as of mid-2025, where Google's Android powers more than 95% of the devices, with the rest using Apple's iOS, Counterpoint Research says.

Apple and Google's lobby group, the ICEA, argued in their July letter that there are significant "legal, privacy, and national security concerns" with the proposal from the telecom group.

It warned their user base would include people from the military, judges, corporate executives and journalists, adding that proposed location tracking risked their security given that they hold sensitive information.

Even the old way of location tracking is becoming problematic, the telecom group said, as smartphone makers show a pop-up message to users, alerting them that their "carrier is trying to access your location."

"A target can easily ascertain that he is being tracked by security agencies," said the telecom group, urging the government to order phone makers to disable the pop-up features.

Privacy concerns should take priority and India should also not consider disabling the pop-ups, Apple and Google's group argued in its July letter to the government.

This will "ensure transparency and user control over their location."

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)

((Email: [email protected]; X: @adityakalra;))

Nov 28 (Reuters) - India's Adani Group plans to invest up to $5 billion in Alphabet-owned Google's GOOGL.O India AI data centre project, an executive said on Friday, as it seeks to cash in on booming demand for data capacity in the world's most populous nation.

In October, Google said it would invest $15 billion over five years to set up an artificial intelligence data centre in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, its biggest investment in India.

AI requires enormous computing power, pushing demand for specialised data centres that enable thousands of chips to be linked in clusters.

Adani Group CFO Jugeshinder Singh said the Google project could mean an investment of up to $5 billion for Adani Connex - a joint venture between Adani Enterprises ADEL.NS and private data centre operator EdgeConneX.

"It's not just Google, there are a lot of parties that would like to work with us, especially when the data centre capacity goes to gigawatt and higher," Singh told reporters on Friday.

Google has committed to spending about $85 billion this year to expand data centre capacity as tech companies invest heavily in infrastructure to meet the booming demand for AI services.

Indian billionaires Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani have also unveiled investments in building data centre capacity.

The data centre campus in the port city of Visakhapatnam will have an initial power capacity of 1 gigawatt.

($1 = 89.3660 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Harshita Meenaktshi and Dhwani Pandya; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

(([email protected];))

By Dharamraj Dhutia and Khushi Malhotra

MUMBAI, Nov 21 (Reuters) - India's Bharti Telecom, the holding company of Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS, is looking to raise $1 billion through a bond sale, its second in two months, two sources aware of the matter said on Friday.

The company is set to issue 90 billion rupees ($1.01 billion) worth of bonds maturing in two years and in three years and is likely to pay a coupon of 7.25% and 7.35%, respectively, on these notes, close to secondary market levels for October's issue, according to the sources.

The funds are being raised largely for refinancing upcoming debt maturities, the sources said, requesting anonymity as they are not authorised to speak to the media.

The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters email seeking comment.

The firm has bonds worth 72.50 billion rupees ($817.89 million) maturing in December, after 25 billion rupees of bonds matured on Friday. It also has securities worth 266.50 billion rupees that will mature between 2026 and 2034.

In October, Bharti Telecom raised 105 billion rupees through the sale of bonds maturing in two years and in three years and two months at an annual coupon of 7.35% and 7.45%, respectively.

The sources said, mutual funds are likely to be big buyers of these bonds, as in the previous issue, while some foreign banks have also shown interest.

At the indicative pricing, this would be the cheapest bond fundraising for Bharti Telecom in four years.

An upgrade of its bonds earlier this year to the highest rating of AAA by CRISIL Ratings has helped lower its borrowing cost.

($1 = 88.6425 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Dharamraj Dhutia and Khushi Malhotra; Editing by Eileen Soreng)

(([email protected];))

Nov 6 (Reuters) -

• SINGTEL OFFERS $1.2 BILLION STAKE IN BHARTI AIRTEL, TERMS SHOW - BLOOMBERG NEWS

• SINGTEL UNIT PASTEL LTD. OFFERED TO SELL 51 MILLION SHARES, OR A STAKE OF 0.8% IN BHARTI, AT A FLOOR PRICE OF 2,030 RUPEES EACH - BLOOMBERG NEWS

Source text: https://tinyurl.com/44b2xjjm

(([email protected];))

Oct 28 (Reuters) - OpenAI will offer its ChatGPT Go subscription free to users in India for one year starting November 4, the Microsoft- MSFT.O backed startup said on Tuesday, as it seeks to boost adoption in its second-largest market.

The plan, which was first launched in India in August, is OpenAI's most affordable offering and is currently priced at 399 rupees ($4.54) per month.

The move comes amid sweeping new rules proposed by the Indian government earlier this month to regulate artificial intelligence, proposing that AI and social media firms clearly label AI-generated content to tackle the spread of deepfake and misinformation.

India is OpenAI's second-largest market by user base after the United States and may soon become its biggest, CEO Sam Altman said earlier this year.

Rival Perplexity is offering a year of free access to its premium plan to Indian users through a tie-up with mobile carrier Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS, while Google GOOGL.O has made its Gemini AI Pro free for students for the same period.

($1 = 87.8950 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Aleef Jahan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)

(([email protected]))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own. Refiles to add conversion of Indian rupee into US dollar in the second paragraph.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, Oct 16 (Reuters Breakingviews) - All that glitters isn't gold when it comes to India's richest man. When Mukesh Ambani lists his telecom business in Mumbai next year, it will be a blockbuster event for the country's capital markets but it also will crystallise underwhelming returns for the world's biggest tech companies, private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds who backed his consumer unit in 2020. It heralds a reset of how foreigners view tycoons and competition in the country.

Five years ago when the Covid pandemic was shaking the world, Ambani's conglomerate Reliance Industries RELI.NS sold 1.5 trillion rupees ($16.99 billion) of stock in Jio Platforms to investors led by Meta Platforms META.O, KKR KKR.N and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund; the flood of funds into India at the time was so large it caused a spike in foreign direct investment.

At 5.16 trillion rupees including debt, or $59 billion at current exchange rates, the landmark fundraising valued Jio's enterprise at 23 times its EBITDA, a multiple twice its nearest rival Sunil Bharti Mittal's Bharti Airtel and one reminiscent of a fast-growing technology startup.

Part of the hype was justified. The telecom unit Ambani founded in 2016 rose quickly by launching a bruising price war and was given a wide berth by India's competition authorities. Jio became the country's top provider of mobile services and helped to push down data tariffs to the lowest in the world. It even accelerated the bankruptcy of Reliance Communications RLCM.NS, led by Ambani's brother Anil. By the time Ambani welcomed outside investors, India's telecoms market had shrunk to a quasi-duopoly with a joint venture between Britain's Vodafone VOD.L and Kumar Mangalam Birla as a weak third player.

Fast forward and Jio had 498 million voice and data customers as of June 30 . Yet while this consumer business within Ambani's oil-to-retail conglomerate has continued to grow, it also has failed to live up to expectations in some striking ways.

Five years on from its fundraising, Jio's enterprise, including net debt, is valued at 10.6 trillion rupees, based on an average estimate of six brokers. That is nearly twice the value investors assigned it in 2020 or equivalent to an annualised return of nearly about 15%, one percentage point more than the annualised gross return of the MSCI India Index over a five year period. Private equity investors typically target returns of 20% and much higher in India.

Measured a different way, Jio's potential return could be even lower. The enterprise is worth just 8.7 trillion rupees if it is valued on 10 times its EBITDA, the same multiple Bharti Airtel commands. At that valuation, Jio would hand its backers including KKR, Silver Lake and TPG, an annualised return of just over 10%.

One problem is that Jio does not look like a "next generation technology platform". In 2020, Jio talked up a dazzling list of investments across its "digital ecosystem" including in "smart devices, cloud and edge computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, augmented and mixed reality and blockchain". Although Jio doesn't have legacy 3G infrastructure to manage like its rivals, it still makes 87% of its revenue and 94% of its EBITDA from its basic communications unit Reliance Jio Infocomm RELJ.NS rather than from digital services, per CLSA analysts.

What's more, Jio's customers spend less than Airtel's. Average revenue per user has grown 60% over the last five years to 209 rupees ($2.37) but that lags the 250 rupees Airtel's India users churn out. Airtel's EBITDA margin for India and South Asia is also higher than Jio's by a staggering 770 basis points and its current offerings in cloud and artificial intelligence services closely mirror its challenger's.

Nor does Jio appear to have delivered on its strategic ambitions. Meta's Facebook pumped $6 billion in for a 10% stake but Ambani - whose Reliance conglomerate is also the owner of India's biggest retailer - did not lure millions of small grocers to transact on the payments system on WhatsApp, the U.S. company's social messaging platform - as was widely expected.

The rise of quick-commerce operations by Prosus-backed Swiggy SWIG.NS and Zomato-owner Eternal ETEA.NS killed Reliance Retail's 2022 attempt to enable grocery shopping through the messaging app. Similarly, Alphabet's Google GOOGL.O invested $4.5 billion in Jio but demand for the low-cost smartphone the duo launched in 2021 was weak; the telecom operator's wide reach didn't guarantee it a market.

Ambani's backers underestimated the strength of competition in India. They would have been better off if they had backed Bharti Airtel. Its shares have returned roughly 40% annually, including dividends, since 2020, significantly more than Jio looks set to deliver. Google enjoyed some of those spoils by hedging its bets: In 2022 it invested up to $1 billion in Jio's rival.

If Jio's returns are underwhelming, crystallizing them will be tough too. Ambani will need to launch one of India's largest initial public offerings. If 5% of the company's outstanding shares swap hands at a $120 billion valuation, Jio's bankers would need to find new owners for $6 billion of stock. That would be far too much for India's capital markets to swallow: Hyundai Motor India's HYUN.NS 279 billion rupee offering in 2024 remains the country's largest IPO, followed by Life Insurance Corporation's LIFI.NS 210 billion rupee deal in 2022.

Ambani could offer half the amount of stock or roughly $3 billion, using new rules from the Securities and Exchange Board of India but that would leave financial investors with billions of dollars of investments in Jio waiting for an exit; strategic investors, who may be willing to sit on their positions, bought about half of the $17 billion Jio initially raised.

Some of Jio's backers may still conclude that the investment was worth it. The dominance of family-led businesses in India often means that striking partnerships is increasingly seen as a matter of survival rather than choice for global companies and a way to protect themselves in the market. Global asset manager BlackRock BLK.N and China-founded online fast-fashion Shein are among others who are partnering with Ambani.

Yet an underwhelming payoff from Jio will strengthen the case for more scrutiny when foreign investors choose their local alliances in the future.

Follow Shritama Bose on LinkedIn and X.

CONTEXT NEWS

Reliance Industries will list its telecommunications unit by mid-2026, Chair Mukesh Ambani said at the conglomerate's annual shareholder meeting on August 29. "We are aiming to list Jio by the first-half of 2026, subject to all necessary approvals," he said.

Jio Platforms is targeting India's largest-ever initial public offering, IFR reported on September 5, citing unnamed bankers.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Aditya Srivastav)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on BOSE/[email protected]))

Oct 15 (Reuters) - India's second-largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS has partnered with IBM IBM.N to offer the American tech firm's services through its recently launched cloud platform, the companies said on Wednesday as demand for computing capacity grows.

Indian firms have been working to expand the availability of cloud platforms as the growing prominence of artificial intelligence technology and some localized data storage requirements have boosted demand for cloud services in the country.

Through this partnership, Airtel Cloud customers will be able to deploy IBM's offerings, such as AI-ready servers for applications, in regulated industries like banking, healthcare, government and others.

This comes just a day after Google said it would invest $15 billion over five years to set up an AI data centre in India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Airtel is also partnering with Google to jointly establish the data center in the port city of Visakhapatnam.

Bharti Airtel's digital unit Xtelify unveiled its Airtel Cloud service in August.

IBM and Airtel will also establish two new Multizone Regions, or MZRs, in Mumbai and Chennai soon, said Gopal Vittal, vice chairman and managing director of Bharti Airtel.

MZRs account for cloud infrastructure that is spread across physical locations in different zones to ensure data and operations remain safe and uninterrupted in case of faults in any distinct region.

This will help Indian businesses address data residency requirements and keep mission-critical workloads and applications up and running at all times, the companies said.

(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)

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Repeats October 10 story with no changes to text

By Dharamraj Dhutia and Khushi Malhotra

MUMBAI, Oct 10 (Reuters) - India's Bharti Telecom, the holding company of Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS, will launch the largest bond sale of the current fiscal year next week, aiming to raise funds at significantly lower rates than last year, according to three merchant bankers.

The company is looking to raise 150 billion rupees ($1.7 billion) through the sale of bonds maturing in two years and in three years and two months.

It will pay an annual coupon of 7.35% and 7.45% on these issues, respectively, the bankers added.

Mutual funds are likely to be big buyers of the bonds, said one of the bankers, adding that there was interest from some foreign banks and private banks as well.

The bankers requested anonymity as they are not authorised to speak to media. The company did not reply to a Reuters email sent on Thursday seeking a response.

This would be the cheapest bond fundraising for the company in four years.

A 100 basis-point cut in the Reserve Bank of India's policy rate in 2025, and an upgrade of the company's existing bonds to the highest-grade rating of AAA by CRISIL Ratings has helped bring down costs for the company.

If successful, it would be the biggest bond issue of this year. In November 2024, it had raised 111.50 billion rupees through the sale of bonds.

"While majority of the funding will go for refinancing, the company will use a sufficient chunk for capex," the banker said.

The firm has debt securities worth 97.50 billion rupees that are due to mature in November-December. It also has bonds worth 161.50 billion rupees that will mature between 2027-2034.

($1 = 88.8100 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Dharamraj Dhutia and Khushi Malhotra; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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By Dharamraj Dhutia and Khushi Malhotra

MUMBAI, Oct 10 (Reuters) - India's Bharti Telecom, the holding company of Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS, will launch the largest bond sale of the current fiscal year next week, aiming to raise funds at significantly lower rates than last year, according to three merchant bankers.

The company is looking to raise 150 billion rupees ($1.7 billion) through the sale of bonds maturing in two years and in three years and two months.

It will pay an annual coupon of 7.35% and 7.45% on these issues, respectively, the bankers added.

Mutual funds are likely to be big buyers of the bonds, said one of the bankers, adding that there was interest from some foreign banks and private banks as well.

The bankers requested anonymity as they are not authorised to speak to media. The company did not reply to a Reuters email sent on Thursday seeking a response.

This would be the cheapest bond fundraising for the company in four years.

A 100 basis-point cut in the Reserve Bank of India's policy rate in 2025, and an upgrade of the company's existing bonds to the highest-grade rating of AAA by CRISIL Ratings has helped bring down costs for the company.

If successful, it would be the biggest bond issue of this year. In November 2024, it had raised 111.50 billion rupees through the sale of bonds.

"While majority of the funding will go for refinancing, the company will use a sufficient chunk for capex," the banker said.

The firm has debt securities worth 97.50 billion rupees that are due to mature in November-December. It also has bonds worth 161.50 billion rupees that will mature between 2027-2034.

($1 = 88.8100 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Dharamraj Dhutia and Khushi Malhotra; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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JOHANNESBURG, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Optasia, a fintech company partly owned by Ethos Capital, said on Wednesday it planned to list on South Africa's Johannesburg Stock Exchange and raise up to 6.3 billion rand ($375 million) by selling a combination of new and existing shares.

The company, which operates AI-powered financial services in 38 countries, will raise about 1.3 billion rand in an initial public offering and also hold a private placement of at least 5 billion rand for existing shareholders, it said in a statement.

"An IPO will allow us to accelerate our growth, raise our visibility as a leading global fintech and continue innovating to expand financial opportunity where it is needed most," CEO Salvador Anglada said.

Optasia, headquartered in Dubai, provides micro-financing and mobile phone airtime credit to people who often don't have traditional bank accounts, primarily in emerging markets. The company said it had around 121 million monthly active users and processed over 32 million loan transactions daily.

It was founded in 2012 and operates mostly in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Its distribution partners include South African mobile operators MTN MTNJ.J, Vodacom VODJ.J and Airtel AAF.L

($1 = 17.2488 rand)

(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla
Editing by Mark Potter)

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Oct 6 (Reuters) - Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS:

• WINS MULTI-YEAR CONTRACT FOR INDIAN RAILWAY SECURITY

• TO BUILD MULTI-LAYER PROTECTION FOR RAILWAY DATABASE

Source text: ID:nNSE9njmRf

Further company coverage: BRTI.NS

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The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, Oct 3 (Reuters Breakingviews) - India's artificial intelligence angst may be premature. OpenAI and Perplexity's aggressive entry into the country has sparked fears that it's falling behind the U.S. But the emergence of China's DeepSeek shows early movers can be disrupted.

In August, Sam Altman's OpenAI launched its cheapest ChatGPT subscription plan to target India's billion-odd internet users, following rival Perplexity, which is offering its Pro service to 360 million Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS telecom customers at no cost. The duo's entry into the country follows an outburst from a federal minister in April, admonishing local startups to emulate China, rather than make "fancy ice cream and cookies".

Complacency fears are understandable. India has yet to develop an answer to Western and Chinese large language models despite being home to the second-largest pool of AI professionals in the world behind the U.S., as well as home to top outsourcers like Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS and research hubs of multinational businesses from JPMorgan JPM.N to SAP. Falling behind in the AI race might jeopardise the country's status as a global IT services hub. Fraying ties between Washington and New Delhi will also make dependence on American tech politically unpalatable.

At the same time, though, it's still early days in India's $7.8 billion AI industry. Unlike in social media and payments, chatbots and other tools rely less on network effects, leaving room for local challengers to emerge. New Delhi's struggle lies in strategically tackling the biggest constraints holding its companies back.

The first is funding: Indian investments in AI between 2013 and 2024 were just 9% of those in China and a fraction of U.S. investments over the period, per statistics from Bernstein. Officials are stepping up their efforts, with a 103 billion rupees ($1.2 billion) startup fund to support both large language models and applications targeting the 500 million Indians that are not yet online. That should encourage the development of multilingual and mobile use cases, such as in crop management and school-level learning. More initiatives should follow.

New Delhi is also supporting the sector with subsidised computing power available at less than 100 rupees ($1.14) an hour, half the global average, as part of its broader IndiaAI Mission initiative. It can go further by encouraging Indian talent to stay in the country, via research grants and schemes at a time when t he U.S. is tightening access to skilled worker visas.

Over time, these steps should help encourage greater risk-taking by not just deep-pocketed firms like Reliance Industries RELI.NS, which in August announced a joint venture with Meta Platforms META.O to offer AI services to enterprises, but also the country's startups. Promising companies like Lightspeed-backed Sarvam, which specialises in Indic-language and speech models, and e-learning assistant Entri, are making steady progress. Moreover, government-backed digital infrastructure, such as mobile payments, should offer plenty of opportunities for new upstarts.

India's position is unenviable, but at least there is still time.

Follow Shritama Bose on Linkedin and X.

CONTEXT NEWS

OpenAI on August 19 launched ChatGPT Go, a new India-only subscription plan priced at 399 rupees ($4.53) per month, its most affordable offering yet.

Indian telecommunications company Bharti Airtel said on July 17 it was partnering with U.S. artificial intelligence firm Perplexity to offer a 12-month complimentary subscription to the latter's Pro service to its 360 million customers.

(Editing by Robyn Mak; Production by Ujjaini Dutta)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on BOSE/[email protected]))

** Shares of Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS rise ~2% to 1,939.70 rupees

** Stock among top two percent gainers on Nifty 50 .NSEI, which is trading flat

** Operator discontinues entry-level data plan of 249 rupees with 1GB data per day for 24 days

** Rival Reliance Jio also dropped its entry-level plan on Tuesday

** Jefferies says this move will drive higher data usage, boost average revenue per user by 3% for entry-level data subscribers

** Jefferies has BRTI as its preferred pick in the sector, with PT at 2,500 rupees

** On avg, analysts rate the stock "Buy"; median PT is 2,107.50 rupees - data compiled by LSEG

** YTD, BRTI up 22%

(Reporting by Komal Salecha)

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Updates throughout with details on results

Aug 13 (Reuters) - Singapore Telecommunications STEL.SI posted a 14% increase in first-quarter underlying profit on Wednesday, driven by strong results from its Australian unit Optus and contributions from regional associates, including India's Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS.

Singtel's improved performance highlighted price hikes for telecom services in key markets and resilient growth from its regional associates, led by Bharti Airtel, whose post-tax contribution from India and South Asia more than doubled during the quarter.

Post-tax contribution from regional associates, including Bharti Airtel, Indonesia's Telkomsel, and Thailand's AIS, grew 24.5% to S$468 million.

As a result, Singtel's first-quarter underlying net profit rose to S$686 million ($534.77 million) from S$603 million a year earlier, largely in line with the consensus estimate of S$686.9 million, according to Visible Alpha.

"We achieved a strong set of first-quarter results despite ongoing macroeconomic uncertainties and currency fluctuations," Singtel CEO Yuen Kuan Moon said.

On a statutory basis, Singtel reported a net profit of S$2.88 billion, sharply higher from S$690 million seen last year, bolstered by one-off gains from the sale of a partial stake in Airtel and the Intouch-Gulf Energy merger.

Yuen forecast the telecom operator's data centre business to be a "bright spot" in the ongoing financial year as its data centres in Thailand and Singapore near completion.

($1 = 1.2828 Singapore dollars)

(Reporting by Sameer Manekar and Nikita Maria Jino in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

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Aug 13 (Reuters) - Singapore Telecommunications STEL.SI reported a 14% rise in first-quarter underlying profit on Wednesday, driven by strong performance from Australian unit Optus and contributions from regional associates including India's Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS.

Southeast Asia's largest telecom operator reported an underlying net profit of S$686 million ($534.77 million) for the three-month period ended June 30, up from S$603 million a year earlier.

That was largely in line with the consensus estimate of S$686.9 million, according to Visible Alpha.

($1 = 1.2828 Singapore dollars)

(Reporting by Sameer Manekar and Nikita Maria Jino in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

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