Bharti Airtel joins e-commerce app domain, launches ‘Airtel Zero’

With app-based e-commerce activity on the rise, the country’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel has decided to join the bandwagon. The company launched Zero — an open, non-discriminatory platform for e-commerce app players, which it terms as a B2B service for the over-the-top (OTT) players.

Srini Gopalan, director — consumer business, Bharti Airtel – told FE that the new platform would enable the e-commerce players to launch their apps for download by the consumers and would come at a fraction of cost they currently incur by utilising digital marketing tools. For the customers downloading of such apps from the Airtel platform there would be no data charge.

“This platform — Airtel Zero — would be a real win-win for customers and e-commerce app players,” Srini said.

He said that the company is in the final stages of finalising pacts with around 20-25 e-commerce players and about 100 start-ups who would utilise this new platform. “The country’s top 4-5 e-commerce players would sign up with us,” Srini said while declining to divulge the names.

The way the platform would work is simple: The participating e-commerce player would be able to provide downloading of app on the Airtel platform which would cost much less than what they incur today by digital marketing initiatives. For the consumer the downloading of the app would not entail any data charge. Further, the usage of the app could be either fully free of data charge or free up to a point as opted by the e-commerce player.

“From the pilots undertaken we have seen that on an average if a player pays R100 to generate a download using digital marketing, he will end up paying 1/3 in Airtel Zero,” Srini said.

The benefit for Airtel in this initiative is that it gets revenues from the e-commerce players for hosting their app on its platform. Further, while the customer does not pay any data charge for the download and only maybe a part for further usage, this charge would be paid by the e-commerce player to the company.

While Airtel Zero would be a B2B platform, it would be marketed to the consumers through a different brand name. Srini said that the move is “in in sync with governments vision of digital inclusion and make in India vision”.

Analysts said that with the rise of app-based e-commerce mobile operators would have to look at newer ways of monetising this opportunity and Airtel’s move is a step in this direction.