A day after various reports, citing sources, stated that Amazon was in talks to buy a stake in Bharti Airtel for $2 billion, the telecom major has downplayed these as mere speculations. "Such speculative reporting while moving the stock price leads to unwarranted consequences and can result in reputational impact," the operator said in a statement.
"...it is clarified the company routinely works with all digital and OTT players and has deep engagement with them to bring their products, content and services for our wide customer base. Beyond that, there is, at this stage, no such proposal in consideration," Airtel stated. "We urge you to take adequate steps to deal with such practices (speculative reporting) which of late have become a regular pattern, especially in the telecom sector," it added.
A Reuters report on Thursday had claimed that Amazon.com was in early-stage talks with Airtel. A deal with Bharti could help Amazon expand offerings via its smart speakers and also boost its cloud business as access to Bharti's vast telecom fibre network could help Amazon lower costs, the report had said.
Interestingly, this is the second similar news that has made headlines within a week. Last week, a Financial Times report had said that tech giant Google was in talks to buy 5 per cent stake in Vodafone Idea. However, in a similar statement by Airtel, Vodafone Idea had denied the news.
The new-found interest in the Indian telecom sector has come about after Facebook bought 9.99 per cent stake in Reliance Industries' digital arm, Jio Platforms, for Rs 44,000 crore in April.
Airtel and Vodafone Idea, which were reeling under the big bang entry of Reliance Jio, were dealt another major blow in October last year when the Supreme Court ruled that the companies owe nearly Rs 93,000 crore to the Department of Telecom. However, the growing internet base in the underpenetrated Indian market makes it an attractive business opportunity for the US tech giants.
