Why Is Airtel Betting Big On Digital Business?
Features oi-Priyanka Dua  After investing big in telecom services, Airtel has started betting big on its digital business. Notably, the telecom operator has restructured its entire digital business as it wants to focus on the same segment in a better way. In fact, the company has started hiring more people in its digital business as Airtel is looking at consumer-focused products. Notably, the decision on digital focus comes at that time after Reliance Jio and Vodafone-Idea starts focussing on machine learning, IoT-based solutions, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Airtel is converting its entire structure so that it can focus more on its digital operations and monetize them in the coming months. The industry sources also said that 1600 people are working on these digital services and these are recruited from top engineering colleges. Interestingly, teams from these top colleges have built AI-enabled chatbots, which can talk to all customers in 12 languages and can solve the issues for their 340 million users. "Our engineering teams have been using a lot of open source stack, solving problems ranging from distributed computing, high-performance mobile apps, voice bot, understanding high-performance, and building recommendation systems," said Sunil Goyal, Head, Digital Customer Experience Engineering for Airtel. Airtel New Corporate Structure  The telecom operator has recently changed the entire corporate structure to increase revenues from digital and telecom services. Additionally, the new structure is expected to help the telecom operator to reduce its debt. Airtel also said that the new firms will have all future digital services or products, Wynk Music, Airtel Xstream, Airtel Thanks app, Airtel Secure, Airtel Cloud, and Airtel IQ. Airtel also states that its board has approved this scheme. "The company has moved the government to seek clarity on licensing policy, given that carriage, telecom, and DTH, is currently being regulated and managed under two separate ministries, of communications and I&B, respectively," the telecom operator added. Airtel's strategy to change the structure and focus on digital services comes after Reliance Jio incorporated Jio platforms to combine all digital platforms under one entity. This also means that there are chances that Airtel might start selling its stake in its Digital business to reduce its AGR debt. Additionally, this Airtel digital business, which is close to Rs. 100 crore is likely to cross Rs. 1,000 crores revenue in coming years. Best Mobiles in India  Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications