Airtel buys stake in Juggernaut

Seeking to enlarge its content ecosystem, telecom operator Bharti Airtel has acquired a strategic stake in Juggernaut Books, a digital platform backed by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani.

Juggernaut allows people to discover and read books as well as submit amateur writing. The investment is part of Airtel’s efforts to build an ecosystem to service customers with digital content. For Juggernaut, founded by Chiki Sarkar, the move will help ramp up content acquisition and digital marketing and prepare for a subscription-offering launch in the next few months.

Content is going to be a major thrust area for telcos as they look to increase data consumption among subscribers.

Airtel has got a portfolio of content applications like Wynk Movies, Wynk Music, and Wynk Games, whereas Reliance Jio has got its own content platforms like JioTV, JioCinema, JioMusic, JioCloud, and JioMags. “Juggernaut is an exciting digital platform and complements our content vision. We look forward to working with them and supporting the next phase of their growth journey,” said Badal Bagri, CFO, Bharti Airtel.

Analysts believe partnerships between mobile operators and content platforms will increase as the game shifts towards pure-play data. Also, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has exempted content delivery networks (CDN) from its recommendations on net neutrality.