Airtel, Google reunite to roll out RCS messaging in India

Mumbai: Bharti Airtel has joined forces with Google, after a year of keeping a distance with the US technology company over offering rich communication services (RCS) messaging on the Indian telecom operator’s network.

Both companies have signed a pact that would see Airtel soon start offering RCS – positioned as a successor to traditional SMS – using Google’s platform.

Airtel will charge ₹0.11 per message, under an 80:20 revenue share arrangement with Google, industry executives told ET.