Bharti Airtel has announced a new corporate structure. The new structure provides focus on the four distinct businesses which include digital, India, international and infrastructure.
The structure envisages a newly created unit Airtel Digital Limited folding into the listed entity which will now house all of its digital assets and future digital products and services. Further, the telecom businesses of Airtel will now be moved to a newly created unit, Airtel Limited. Bharti Telemedia, the arm operating DTH services will sit alongside Airtel Limited for now. It will eventually fold the DTH business into Airtel Limited to move towards the NDCP vision of converged services to customers, the company added.
According to the telco, Airtel Payments Bank will remain a separate entity under Airtel and work closely with the growing customer base to play a pivotal role in realising the digital opportunity that payments and financial services provides. Further, it added that all of the company’s infrastructure businesses such as Nxtra and Indus Towers will continue to remain in separate entities as they are currently. So will international subsidiaries and affiliates.
With this, under the new structure, Bharti Airtel, housing the digital assets, becomes the holding company of separate units – telecom business under Airtel, Airtel Payments Bank, international businesses including Airtel Africa and infrastructure business under Nxtra and Indus.
To this end, Airtel has sought clarity from the government on licensing policy. The new structure was approved by the board of directors on April 12, 2021.
