Airtel partners with Karbonn to launch A1 Indian, A41 Power for under Rs 2,000

Key Highlights

• Effective price of the A1 Indian will be Rs 1799.
• The A41 Power will be available for Rs 1849.
• Monthly recharges of Rs 169 will have to be made for 36 months to avail cashback on the phone.

In another bundled handset plan, Airtel has partnered with Karbonn to launch two more 4G enabled smartphones on Thursday. The price of the A1 Indian and A41 Power have been priced under Rs 2,000, excluding monthly recharge plans.

“The launch is part of Airtel’s ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative, which is aimed at enabling every Indian to buy a 4G smartphone and get on to the digital superhighway,” Airtel said.

Effective price of the A1 Indian will be Rs 1799 as compared to MRP of Rs 4390 and the A41 Power will be available for Rs 1849 compared to MRP of Rs 4290, the company said.

“We are delighted to partner with Airtel. The immense response that we got for us our offer with Airtel helped us add 70% new feature phone users to our existing portfolio,” said Pardeep Jain, MD, Karbonn Mobiles.

“Both 4G smartphones come bundled with a monthly pack of Rs 169 from Airtel, which offers generous data and calling benefits,” Airtel added.

The company has also given other recharge options to customers of recharging Rs 3000 within the first 18 months and another Rs 3000 in the next 18 months.

Unlike Reliance Jio, Airtel said that customers do not need to return the devices to avail the cashback.

“For the ‘A1 Indian' 4G smartphone, the customer needs to make a down payment of Rs 3299 and for the ‘A41 Power’ 4G smartphone the down payment is Rs 3349. Customers need to make 36 continuous monthly recharges of Rs 169 pack from Airtel. 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,” Airtel said.

Earlier, Airtel had launched the A40 Indian along with Karbonn wherein the price of the monthly recharge was the same. “The smartphone was fully sold out within the first month of launch, underpinning the strong customer endorsement for this highly affordable proposition.”

“We saw very strong demand for our first offer under the ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative, which validates the broad appeal of this innovative proposition. We are also delighted to have Amazon on board as a partner in this exciting journey and look forward to working closely with them. We believe these partnerships will help us make a significant contribution towards transforming India into a smartphone nation,” Raj Pudipeddi, Director – Consumer Business & CMO, Bharti Airtel said.

Both smartphones come with a 4inch touch screen display and 1 GB RAM. It sports a dual SIM slot, dual camera along with a host of features.

“The 4G smartphones, which are Google certified, run on the latest Android 7.0 Nougat OS and offer full access to all apps,” Airtel added.