Partnerships with edtech and healthtech companies will help build a future revenue stream for Vodafone Idea Ltd (Vi), said the telco’s marketing director Avneesh Khosla. However, Khosla did not say how these collaborations will generate revenue for the cash-strapped company that owes hundreds of billions of rupees to the government.
Vodafone Idea has partnered with edtech firms upGrad, Udemy and Pedagogya, and signed up health and wellness companies such as Mfine, Cure.fit and 1mg as partners. For business-related help, Vi has tied up with Eunimart, Hubbler and Fiskl. The telco plans to onboard more partners in these areas to offer exclusive services to its customers.
“It is going to be a meaningful revenue stream…this (the partnerships) is again something that we have very very clearly outlined as one of our strategic moves as we move forward… A strong source of revenue for us as we move this agenda forward,” Khosla said on Friday.
Customers in the age group of 18-45 years who use smartphones across urban and rural areas, are the target for offers being made by Vi in edtech and healthcare, Khosla said. There is an increase in demand for digital services in rural areas, he said.
“It’s not necessarily only urban…There is a fair amount of interest as far as rural is concerned. We definitely see a lot of rural areas actively participating digitally, whether it’s over-the-top content, education or healthcare,” Khosla said.
“Having established pan-India 4G coverage for 1 billion Indians and delivering fastest 4G speeds, Vi is now bringing in a range of new-age service offerings to address the digital shift in customer behaviour,” said Ravinder Takkar, chief executive, Vodafone Idea.
This article was first published on livemint.com.
