The development comes weeks after it tied up with Karbonn to offer a 4G feature phone
Country's largest telecom player Bharti Airtel has announced a partnership with Celkon to offer 4G smartphone at an effective price of just Rs 1,349.
The development comes weeks after it tied up with Karbonn to offer a 4G feature phone. The partnerships are part of Airtel’s ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative, under which it plans to collaborate with device manufacturers to bring smartphones at the price of a feature phone.
4G feature phones have become the talk of the town after new telecom player Reliance Jio announced JioPhone. Since then, existing telecom players have announced partnerships with many mobile phone manufacturers to come up with their own versions of such phones.
The Celkon Smart 4G, which has a current market price of about Rs 3,500, comes with a four-inch touchscreen, dual SIM slots and FM radio. The Android-powered 4G smartphone offers full access to all apps on Google Play Store, including YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp. The device will come pre-loaded with MyAirtel App, Wynk Music and Airtel TV to add to the online experience of customers. It comes bundled with a monthly pack of Rs 169 from Airtel.
Raj Pudipeddi, director – consumer business and CMO, Bharti Airtel, said, “We are pleased to partner with Celkon in our endeavour to bring affordable smartphone options to the market and build an open ecosystem of low-cost devices."
To avail of this offer, a customer needs to make a down payment of Rs 2,849 for the 4G smartphone and make 36 continuous monthly recharges of Rs 169. The customer will get a cash refund of Rs 500 after 18 months and another Rs 1,000 after 36 months, taking the total cash benefit to Rs 1,500.
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 3,000 must be done within the first 18 months to claim the first refund installment of Rs 500 and another Rs 3,000 over the next 18 months to claim the second refund installment of Rs 1,000.
The ownership of the smartphone is completely with the customer and there is no need to return the device to Airtel/Celkon at any point to claim the cash benefit. After sales support for the device will be provided by Celkon through their service network.
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