iWorld
Google to invest $1 billion in Airtel
Mumbai: Bharti Airtel and Google on Friday announced that the latter intends to invest $ one billion in the telecom major as part of its Google for India Digitisation Fund which includes equity investment as well as a corpus.
The investment will be for potential commercial agreements to be identified and agreed on mutually agreeable terms over the next five years. This will comprise a $700 million investment in Bharti Airtel at a price per share of Rs 734. Up to $300 million of that will go towards implementing commercial agreements which will include scaling Airtel’s offerings. Google will acquire a 1.2 per cent shareholding of Bharti Airtel including partly paid shares.
The deal will be subject to regulatory approvals.
“Airtel and Google share the vision to grow India’s digital dividend through innovative products,” said Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal. “With our future-ready network, digital platforms, last-mile distribution and payments ecosystem, we look forward to working closely with Google to increase the depth and breadth of India’s digital ecosystem.”
Airtel and Google will work together to explore opportunities to bring down barriers of owning a smartphone in partnership with various device manufacturers, potentially co-create India-specific network domain use cases for 5G and other standards and focus on growing and shaping the cloud ecosystem in India.
“Airtel is a leading pioneer shaping India’s digital future, and we are proud to partner on a shared vision for expanding connectivity and ensuring equitable access to the Internet for more Indians,” said Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. “Our commercial and equity investment in Airtel is a continuation of our Google for India Digitization Fund’s efforts to increase access to smartphones, enhance connectivity to support new business models, and help companies on their digital transformation journey.”
iWorld
Tips Music CEO Hari Nair to step down
Girish Taurani and Sushant Dalmia to jointly steer the company as the hunt for a new chief begins
MUMBAI: A leadership shuffle is under way at Tips Music. Hari Nair, the company’s chief executive, will step down on April 30 as the music label begins the search for a successor.
The company said Girish Taurani, executive director, and Sushant Dalmia, chief financial officer, will jointly oversee operations during the transition while the board identifies a permanent replacement.
Nair joined Tips Music in 2023 and set about reshaping the veteran music label into a more digital, data-led enterprise. During his tenure, the company secured licensing and partnership deals with global platforms including Sony Music Publishing and TikTok, while renewing agreements with Warner Music Group.
Drawing on earlier experience in technology and entertainment, including a stint at ByteDance, Nair pushed the organisation towards a performance-driven culture. He built a brand partnerships division and introduced proprietary software systems aimed at strengthening digital distribution and data capabilities.
Kumar Taurani, chairman and managing director, credited Nair with embedding a data-led culture within the company and driving revenue growth in line with shareholder commitments.
In his resignation note, Nair said that after helping transition the label into a modern, digitally focused and process-driven organisation, the time had come to pursue his next leadership challenge.
The leadership change comes as the broader Tips Films group shows signs of financial stabilisation. In the third quarter of FY26 the company reported a net loss of Rs 2.86 crore, narrowing sharply from Rs 14.2 crore in the previous quarter. For the nine months ended December, losses stood at Rs 12.37 crore.
Yet revenue told a more volatile story. Income from operations slid to Rs 4 crore in Q3 FY26 from Rs 56 crore in the preceding quarter, taking total operating income to Rs 4.56 crore.
For a company built on a catalogue of more than 34,000 tracks and decades of Bollywood hits, the next chief will inherit both a digital engine and a volatile music market. The playlist may be familiar, but the next act at Tips Music is only just beginning.
