Telecom Services

Bharti Airtel inks partnership with HP to offer cloud-based services to enterprises

July 8, 2012

Telecom Lead India: India’s top mobile operator Bharti
Airtel has inked a partnership with HP to offer cloud-based services to
business customers.

The cloud-based services include e-mail, accounting
packages, business software and storage services.

The strategic partnership is aimed at enhancing revenue from
Airtel enterprise division.

airtel business posts 10 percent increase in Q4 revenue

airtel business, the enterprise division of Bharti Airtel,
has posted 10 percent increase in revenue to Rs 1120 crore in fourth quarter
fiscal 2011-12 from Rs 1022 crore in the same quarter previous year. The
enterprise business division spent Rs 34 crore during the fourth quarter as
Capex against Rs 45 crore in Q4 fiscal 2010-11.

Bharti Airtel rebrands B2B business

Bharti Airtel has rebranded its B2B business as airtel
business. With this new identity, the company claims to reinforce its
commitment of delivering innovative business solutions and a superior brand
experience to all its large & small enterprises, government and carrier
customers across the globe.

The five-year deal will enable HP to gain market access for
its cloud computing technologies without having to spend on marketing to SMBs.

Bharti Airtel has 30,000 SMB customers for internet and mobile services and now
it will be able to expand that portfolio of services to include accounting
software, storage and business software, Economic Times reported.

“We are starting with basic services and will expand to more specialized
offerings like healthcare and education applications on the cloud, later,” said
Amrita Gangotra, director of IT at Bharti Airtel.

Bharti now earns 12 percent of its revenue from SMBs.

HP has a similar tie-up in the US with Verizon and others.

While HP implements and manages the cloud infrastructure (data centers, storage
software and hardware and ensure scalability, security), Bharti Airtel will use
its market reach to win customers. Towards this end, Bharti Airtel has hired a
cloud expert from Wipro Technologies.

The Cloud Enablement Platform will be hosted in India by HP. It will offer
cloud-based applications on a pay-as-you-go model and meets telecom regulator TRAI’s
norms on hosting data locally.

The deal is important for Bharti Airtel at it is looking at
increasing revenue from data business.

Airtel revenue up 20% to Rs 71,451 crore; profit down 30%

Bharti Airtel posted Rs 71,451 crore revenue in fiscal
2011-12, up 20 percent compared with the same period last fiscal. India &
South Asia revenues increased 11.6 percent to Rs 51,893 crore. Africa revenues
grew 43.7 percent to $4,137 million. Airtel posted a 30 percent drop in profit
to Rs 4,259 crore in fiscal 2011-12 against Rs 6,047 crore in FY 2011.

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