Telecom operator Bharti Airtel – often referred to as Airtel – yesterday announced its partnership with Samsung to offer cashback of ₹1500 on select 4G smartphones. Airtel in the past has also teamed up with smartphone brands like Karbonn, Celkon and Intex to bring 4G smartphones at an affordable price to the masses. Well now, to further expand its portfolio of affordable 4G smartphones available to its customers, Airtel has teamed up with itel.
Airtel has announced its partnership with itel to offer cashback of ₹1500 on two itel 4G smartphones – itel A40 and itel A41. Both the A40 and A41 have a market price of ₹4599 and ₹4699 respectively, however, with the cashback of ₹1500, the effective price of these smartphones comes down to ₹3099 and ₹3199 respectively.
This cashback of ₹1500 will be offered to Airtel customers over a period of 36 months, and, to avail this cashback benefit, customers will first have to make a down payment of ₹4599 for itel A40 and ₹4699 for itel A41. After that, they have to do recharges worth ₹3000 in the first 18 months which will get them a cashback of ₹500. In the next 18 months, they will again have to do recharges worth ₹3000 to get cashback of the remaining ₹1000.
Both these aforementioned smartphones will come bundled with Airtel’s ₹169 monthly recharge pack which offers benefits like free local and STD voice calls, and, 500 MB of data per day. To be eligible for cashback benefit, Airtel customers can either recharge with ₹169 pack every month for 36 months, or, can opt for the method mentioned above.
Commenting on this partnership, Ajai Puri, COO – Bharti Airtel said “We are delighted to partner itel as we expand our range of affordable 4G smartphones with an aim to enable every Indian to own a 4G smartphone and be a part of the digital revolution. Airtel now has the largest partner ecosystem of device manufacturers and we thank our partners for sharing our vision of smartphone for every Indian.”
That said, Airtel has teamed up itel as a part of its ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative under which the telco aims to bring affordable 4G smartphones to the masses by teaming up with smartphone vendors.
Well, with that being said, customers buying either the A40 or A41 are also entitled to a 100-day replacement warranty from itel.
Also, in terms of specifications, both the smartphones are powered by a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor which is coupled with 1 GB RAM. These smartphones boot up to Android 7.0 Nougat and sport a 5-inch FWVGA display. Other specifications include a 5 MP rear camera, 2 MP front camera, 8 GB internal storage (expandable up to 32 GB via microSD card), 4G VoLTE and ViLTE support, and, a 2400 mAh battery.
