Bharti Airtel is in talks with the Tata Group to merge Tata Play’s Direct-To-Home (DTH) business with Bharti Telemedia, its subsidiary. The telecom major said that the talks are in the early stages and no final agreement has been signed yet.
If the merger is completed, it could create a market leader in India’s DTH sector, based on combining Tata Play and Bharti Telemedia’s customer base. It has been reported that Airtel may own between 52-55% in the merged entity, with the balance being shared by the current shareholders of Tata Play, including Walt Disney.
As of now, Tata Play is a 70:30 joint venture between Tata Sons and Disney, while Airtel’s DTH business is also well established. The two companies together had 35 million paid subscribers as of last September, this was more than half of India’s 60 million DTH subscribers. Each of the two businesses is said to be valued between ₹6,000 to ₹7,000 crore.
On the other hand, Airtel has also entered into a partnership with Ericsson to enhance its 5G Standalone (SA) network technology. Ericsson will be providing the crucial 5G equipment to Airtel to switch over to a full scale commercial 5G network.
Airtel’s Chief Technology Officer, Randeep Sekhon, said that the Ericsson 5G core solutions would be very important for Airtel’s long-term 5G expansion plan, which would increase network capacity and create new business models.
These strategic moves are seeing Airtel enhance its standing in the DTH and telecom space as it does a u-turn in India’s broadcasting and telecommunications industry.
