At the onset, let me rule out what you’re thinking because I hinted at it: majority control of Vi, India’s third-largest (and still shrinking) telco, by Amazon. Instead, what I meant by “Vimazon” was a partnership. A partnership in which a hugely indebted and severely cash-strapped telco gets a good chunk of money, say a billion or two dollars, from one of the world’s most powerful and ambitious tech giants. Amazon has been interested in Vi, formerly called Vodafone-Idea, as a consolation investment (not sure it would be a prize) since 2021, when it even did a financial due diligence on it. Amazon's first choice was Airtel, in which it had reportedly wanted to invest as much as $2 billion in 2020, but the deal didn't go through. By then, Microsoft had forged a close partnership with Jio, while Google and Facebook had invested over $10 billion combined in the company, which is owned by the one entity that comes closest to being Amazon’s arch-nemesis in India: the Reliance Group. And Google announced earlier this year that it would invest $1 billion in Airtel. What advantages might an ailing telco offer Amazon in e-commerce? Not much. But there’s AWS, the nearly $75 billion revenue business that is the undisputed leader in cloud computing and storage globally. That leaves Amazon as the only major cloud giant without an exclusive telco partnership. And Vi as the only telco with no big investments from big tech. A relationship waiting to be kicked off, though I can’t say if it might be one of convenience or desperation.
Read our article today to understand why even a struggling has-been telco makes imminent sense as a strategic partner for Amazon