NAIROBI, Kenya – Airtel Africa has signed a multiyear, multimillion-dollar strategic partnership with Xtelify, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, to accelerate its digital transformation across the continent.
Xtelify, which houses all of Bharti Airtel’s digital assets, today launched a new AI-powered software platform. The platform is designed to help telecommunication companies streamline operations, improve customer experience, reduce churn and increase average revenue per user.
Under the partnership, Airtel Africa will deploy Xtelify’s software platforms, which include Data Engine, Work and IQ. This will enable Airtel Africa’s 150,000-strong field team across 14 countries to access market insights for targeted strategies and strengthen fraud and spam protection for customers. Xtelify IQ will also provide secure, real-time customer engagement.
Jacques Barkhuizen, Group Chief Information Officer for Airtel Africa, said the partnership is a “transformative leap.”
“By harnessing Airtel’s AI platforms that have proven scale in India, we are not only simplifying our operations but also accelerating hyper-personalized experiences for our customers,” Barkhuizen said. “In addition, this is Airtel leveraging Airtel — a powerful synergy that will drive sustainable growth, innovation, and unmatched value across our 14 African markets.”
Binod Srivastava, Chief Business Officer for Global Business at Bharti Airtel, said the partnership would help address complex challenges.
“By combining our innovative Xtelify platform with Airtel Africa’s vision, we will drive their digital transformation and address industry’s most complex challenges like fighting spam and fraud to ensure utmost customer protection,” Srivastava said.
Xtelify also launched a sovereign, telco-grade cloud platform, Airtel Cloud. The cloud platform, which handles 1.4 billion transactions per minute for Airtel in India, will now be extended to other businesses. The highly secure and reliable platform is hosted on sustainable data centers and offers IaaS, PaaS and advanced connectivity.
