After Airtel, will Vodafone renew its $1bn deal with IBM?

NEW DELHI: Just a year back, country's top operator Bharti Airtel renewed some parts of its outsourcing agreement (worth about $800 million) with IBM for five years, and now all eyes are on Vodafone India that whether it would extend its $1 billion deal with the software major.

Going by media reports, Vodafone India is in talks with IBM for the renewal and the company has not issued any request for proposals to other vendors for the outsourcing contract, which will expire in June 2016. This makes it somewhat clear that the deal will fall in IBM's kitty.

As per the deal, IBM will manage application development and IT network for Vodafone. Meanwhile, IBM is also trying to sell its data analytics solutions to Vodafone as part of the order, the media reports said.