Airtel takes on Reliance Jio with Amazon tie up; Rs 2,600 cashback on offer spanning 65 smartphones

The telecom sector is virtually a war zone. Bharti Airtel, the largest telco, is trying to give stiff competition to newcomer Reliance Jio in the market with heavy data and cashback offers on 4G smartphone. In its latest development, Airtel has joined hands with e-commerce major Amazon India seeking to jointly drive smartphone adoption across the country. This partnership will allow Airtel to give a cashback of Rs 2,600 on over 65 4G smartphones sold on Amazon platform. Such cashback offers can drive down your smartphone purchase price to a low of Rs 3,399. This partnership is expected to give tough battle to the Mukesh Ambani led company, which has affected Airtel’s earnings over the last few quarters with free offers. 

In a notification, Airtel says, “ Millions of Indians can now become first time owners of a 4G smartphone or upgrade to an advanced 4G smartphone of their choice at an affordable price from amongst a wide range of devices starting at an effective price of only Rs 3399.”

Under the partnership, a customer will receive total cashback of Rs 2,600 which will be available on over 65 Amazon.in exclusive 4G smartphones from a popular device brands including Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Honour, LG, Lenovo & Moto amongst others. 

At first customers will get Rs 2,000 of the cashback from Airtel over a period of 36 months and can avail the additional cashback of Rs  600 on Airtel recharges of Rs 169 on Amazon.in, one of the fastest growing mobile recharges platform in India. 

Vani Venkatesh, Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel said, liThe partnership with Amazon India will give further momentum to our 'Mera Pehla Smartphone' initiative which has received an extremely positive response from customers across the country.”

Noor Patel, Director - Category Management, Amazon India said, “Through this partnership, we are empowering customers to enjoy superior 4G technology at affordable prices with a special cash back offer upon recharging exclusively on Amazon.in. In line with our focus on customers, this offer will be available on all Amazon Exclusive smartphones for a select period on Amazon.in."

Earlier Reliance Jio announced a ‘Football Offer’ which provides customers with instant cashback of Rs 2,200 for latest smartphones once they activated on Jio network for the first time. This offer included smartphones from brands like  Xiaomi, Samsung, Motorola, Asus, Huawei, Panasonic, LG, Nokia, Micromax, etc handsets. Other companies include, 10.or, LYF, BlackBerry, Intex, Alcatel, Comio, Jivi, Swipe, Zen, Ziox, Celkon, iVoomi, and Centric.