Big move by Sunil Mittal as Bharti Airtel inks multi-year pact with this Swedish firm for...

Indian billionaire Sunil Mittal continues to expand his telecom empire in India. His Bharti Airtel is the second-largest telecom firm after Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio. Now, Airtel has signed a multi-year strategic agreement with the Swedish giant Ericsson, which will manage Airtel's services across 4G, 5G NSA, 5G SA, Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), Private Networks, and Network Slicing. The partnership will see Ericsson manage Airtel's pan-India network through its state-of-the-art Network Operations Centre (NOC) while scaling FWA and Network Slicing across the country.

The agreement underscores Ericsson's leadership in managed services and reaffirms its commitment to delivering exceptional value to Airtel customers. Currently, Airtel has a market cap of Rs 11.18 lakh crore, as of June 9. “We are excited to enhance our strong collaboration with Ericsson as we pursue our goal of creating a future-ready network that delivers an exceptional experience for our customers. We believe that these innovative technologies will empower us to meet the growing data demands of consumers in a digitally connected India,” said Randeep Sekhon, CTO of Bharti Airtel.

Ericsson's longstanding partnership with Bharti Airtel

Ericsson's longstanding partnership with Bharti Airtel spans over 25 years. It encompasses multiple generations of mobile communications technology. Now, the new announcement follows closely on the heels of Airtel's collaboration with Ericsson on 5G Core to drive 5G evolution.

Airtel's global presence

Airtel is a global communications solutions provider with over 550 million customers in 15 countries across India and Africa. The company also has its presence in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka through its associate entities.

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Bharti Airtel teams up with Google

In May 2025, Bharti Airtel and Google announced a partnership that brings Google One cloud storage subscription service for Airtel customers, helping address the mounting challenge of limited device storage. All postpaid and Wi-Fi customers will get access to six months of 100 GB Google One cloud storage at no extra cost. They will also be able to share this storage with up to five additional people.

(With inputs from IANS)