Vodafone India and Idea Cellular are reported working on a series of low-cost 4G-enabled smartphones to take head-to-head competition with Reliance JioPhone and recently-launched Airtel A40 Indian smartphone. The companies will provide latest smartphones around or less than Rs 1,500.
According to a report by The Economics Times, both the operators are in talks with Lava and Karbonn to jointly roll out new smartphones under Rs 1,500 price range. “We’re in discussions with all three telcos but plans have not been finalised,” said Gaurav Nigam, Product Head at Lava, told the publication. Sources close to the development further revealed that Vodafone and Idea are looking to finalise deals before Diwali.
However, it seems that both Lava and Karbonn are reportedly not planning to bring down the prices of its existing models, but they are looking at telcos to offer plans that would effectively bring down the price of the device. It seems that both the operators are all set to join the bandwagon to woo the 500 million users who are yet to switch to a smartphone.
Bharti Airtel recently partnered with Karbonn to offer an affordable smartphone known as Karbonn A40 Indian for Rs 1,399. The partnership between Airtel and Karbonn is part of Airtel’s ‘Mera Pehla 4G Smartphone’ initiative and the company has announced that it will partner with multiple mobile handset manufacturers to create an ‘open ecosystem’ of affordable 4G smartphones.
You might also like this:
In order to avail the subsidized 4G smartphone, customer needs to make a down payment of Rs 2899 for and he/she has to make 36 continuous monthly recharges of Rs 169. The customer will get a cash refund of Rs 500 after 18 months and another Rs 1000 after 36 months, taking the total cash benefit to Rs 1500. The cashback will be credited to the subscriber’s Airtel Payment Bank account.
In case the customer does not wish to opt for the Rs 169 bundled plan, she/he has the flexibility of doing recharges of any denomination and validity as per individual requirements. However, to claim the cash refund benefit, recharges worth Rs 3000 must be done within the first 18 months (to claim the first refund installment of Rs 500) and another Rs 3000 over the next 18 months (to claim the second refund installment of Rs 1000).