Bharti Airtel has announced that it has formed a strategic partnership to power up to 20 million smart meters with IntelliSmart Infrastructure Private Limited, a leading smart metering and digital solutions provider. This marks Airtel’s foray into smart metering applications such as Head End System, Meter Data Management Systems along with Cloud and Analytics.
According to Airtel, this is one of the largest such deal in the smart metering space in the country. It will significantly contribute towards Airtel’s fast-growing IoT deployment across sectors.
Airtel’s IoT proposition includes its proprietary platform the “Airtel IoT Hub” which will help the utility track and monitor these smart meters with advanced analytics while maintaining extremely high reliability augmented with telco grade security. Housed on Airtel’s own cloud network, the IoT hub will allow enterprise users the capability to connect and manage billions of devices and applications in a highly secure and seamless fashion.
Anil Rawal, MD & CEO, Intellismart Infrastructure
India’s smart metering programme is one of the significant steps taken by the government to modernise the power distribution sector. Smart meters are critical building blocks for smart grids and a fundamental enabler of the digitalisation efforts of the power system. As we set forward to implement one of India’s largest portfolios of smart meters, we are relying on some of the most able and potent partners in the sector for various solution elements to support the successful deployment of our Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) solutions. We are confident that the on-boarding of Airtel as a strategic partner will be a significant step towards our goal of creating strong associations to strengthen our infrastructure solution with a resilient and secure cloud-hosted cellular communication network.
Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, CEO, Airtel Business (India)
We have further strengthened our market leadership as the largest IoT enabler in the country. IoT is one of the fastest-growing business segments for Airtel Business and, with this deal, we are now strategically positioned to play a pivotal role in driving the Govt. of India’s vision of digitising 250 million conventional meters to smart meters. As we connect the devices across the country on our platform, we will exponentially grow our current IoT market share of 55.4% (as on Q1 FY23-24).
