One of India’s largest cellular networks Airtel, and mobile device manufacturer Lava, will now team up to churn out a low-budget 4G mobile device for the Indian market, where the demand for such products is high. This is in direct competition to many other similar team-ups, where yesterday we had reported that Vodafone and Micromax had teamed up to launch their own similar device.
Earlier this month, Airtel had joined with Karbonn to announce the Karbonn A40 Indian, which was also seen as a response to the Reliance Jio juggernaut. Now, a new report by 91Mobiles, which you can access here, has shown that Airtel is open to even more partnerships. Like the Karbonn A40 Indian, the new team up may also have bundled free calls and data usage capabilities as certain incentives.
While the new Airtel-Lava combine may come for Rs 3,500, the total effective cost may be somewhere around the Rs 1,699 mark. This is because the rate of return will be high and the cashback offer may last for quite a few months. Also, given that there might be around Rs 2,000 in cashback offers, we may have to save up for monthly recharges to avail the free calls and the data usage which such plans usually entail.
Ever since Reliance Jio stunned the domestic telecom market with its low-budget offering, the market has demanded more and more such offers. The Lava-Airtel combine is the latest in a long list of answers to the Jio giant.
The new device’s exact specs and features are unknown as of now. However, it might have a 4.5-inch to a 5-inch screen and might run on the Android 7 platform. What is also clear is that Airtel is looking for partners beyond Karbonn and Lava and is on the lookout for a third partner to manufacture phones in the Rs 1,399 and Rs 1,699 price range.
