Airtel will take on Jio ‘smart’ feature phone. But will Reliance stay quiet?
It may be an upstart, but Reliance does not want to let Airtel get any further ahead in India’s mobile market. At the same time, Airtel has decided to take on the Reliance Jio Phone by reportedly planning to launch its own Rs 2000 smartphone. However, Reliance Jio has come up with new offers for the smartphones it already has in the market. While Reliance has recently launched the Jio Phone, and the device has already gone through one round of sales, the company also has a ‘LYF’ brand of smartphones in its kitty. Reliance has decided to bring in some 4G data offers for the LYF mobile buyers, which can take the price of the devices down by almost 50 percent.
Bharti Airtel is expected to launch a new smartphone in India next week, ahead of Diwali. Since it is a 4G VoLTE capable smartphone, Airtel will take on Reliance’s Jio ‘smart’ feature phone. Meanwhile, in the new offer, Jio is basically giving away 5GB monthly data for free to LYF smartphone buyers. They will also get the Prime membership to the network free of cost. These offers can currently be seen only on two Jio LYF phones, namely Lyf C459 and Lyf C451. On the Jio website, the price of these devices is listed as Rs 4,699 and Rs 4,999.
Also read | Jio Phone rival? Bharti Airtel’s 4G smartphone is coming; check its price, features and other details
It should be noted that, under the Jio-LYF Mega Offer, Reliance is offering the deal to active Jio subscribers who buy the LYF devices. The validity period of the offer is from October 2 to October 22, this year (inclusive of both dates). Anyone who gets the mobiles will get a Rs 399 voucher for free. Under this plan, they will get 1GB data/day for 84 days. Once the user exceeds the limit, they will get an additional 5 GB 4G data voucher. This can be availed on every recharge of Rs 149 or above on the Jio network.
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Meanwhile, when Airtel launches its own 4G smartphone, it is also expected to come up with offers for its prepaid and postpaid customers. It will be interesting to see the differences between the Reliance Jio Phone and the Airtel smartphone as the price difference is quite small, despite the refund offer by Jio.
