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They added that the tie up will help Google<\/a> focus especially on the small and medium business (SMB) market where Airtel<\/a> has a strong foothold.
“Clearly, Google is fighting this battle on the cloud. It is an extremely good business, but they are running behind both Microsoft and Amazon,” said Haresh Chawla, partner at private equity firm True North Co. “This is a way to get the Airtel<\/a> commercial users onto the Google Cloud<\/a> Platform. So it works for Google that way that they will try and pull many customers from the Airtel ecosystem into the Google Cloud<\/a>.”
Airtel already serves over 2000 large businesses and around 1 million small businesses in India. As these businesses digitize, it is a win-win for the cloud providers to have access to this user base, say analysts.
The two already have a partnership on cloud services. Last year, Airtel launched a broadband plan for small businesses and startups in partnership with Google Cloud and Cisco in addition to an existing partnership for the G Suite family of apps. As a cloud service provider, even without its Google and AWS partnerships, Airtel has long-standing customer engagements, commanding premier pricing from enterprises, according to analysts. But the SMB market is ripe for growth.
According to Canalys research, AWS has a 32% share of the cloud infrastructure market globally followed by Microsoft Azure at 21% and Google Cloud with 7% share.
Gartner projects the cloud market in India will grow at 31% compounded annually over the next five years to $16 billion by 2025, underlining the growth opportunity. Execution will be key, but if done right, this will be beneficial to Google Cloud in growing its business beyond the top six-10 cities in India, said Naveen Mishra, senior director analyst, Gartner.
“With this investment, Google is trying to penetrate the SMB market by synergizing its cloud and core offerings along with Airtel’s offerings in connectivity and data center space,” said Akshara Bassi, research analyst at Counterpoint.
She added that the Airtel pact will allow Google to potentially bundle its services with leading internet providers in India – both Jio and Airtel
Naveen Mishra, senior director at Gartner, said that over the last two years, Airtel has been investing in building its multi cloud portfolio, first with AWS and then Oracle<\/a>. “Both of these are largely around Airtel building infrastructure and a joint go-to-market strategy. …This deal (with Google) will be especially beneficial in reaching the mid-market and SMB customers through Airtel, which it would not be able to do on its own”.
Vittal said that Airtel’s cloud strategy is three pronged. “One is around our own public cloud, which is about partnering across the ecosystem and where we work closely with Google. There is our own private cloud for data that needs to be hosted in India. So, it's not a competition in that sense. As working with hyper scalars is a top priority for us”.