Airtel Might Soon Launch 4G Smartphones for Just Rs. 2,500

With Reliance Jio reportedly prepping to launch an affordable Android smartphone in association with Google, a new report at present suggests that Airtel is likely to follow suit to better compete with its arch-nemesis.

As per an Economical Times report, India's sometime largest wireless carrier is in talks with smartphone makers to develop low-toll 4G handsets that the company plans to bundle with its mobile connections.

The devices volition be total-fledged 'smartphones' that will cost but around Rs. 2,500 ($35). ET further adds that Airtel will offering both locked and unlocked devices under this initiative. The details are, however, scarce at the moment. Locked devices will be a flake of a novelty in the Indian market, so information technology will exist interesting to see how they will be received by consumers across the country.

US carriers are well-known for offering locked smartphones, thus, reducing the huge burden of paying in full upwardly-front. You can opt for the service plan you prefer and so pay out the aforementioned over a certain menses of time. This not but gets yous a new device but the calling and data services at an attractive toll. Now, imagine this model replicated for a budget phone (already tested via JioPhone) in a market like India.

Meanwhile, the report is seemingly corroborated past Lite Reading. A senior executive at a domestic manufacturer has confirmed that Airtel is indeed working with several homegrown brands such every bit Karbonn, Lava, and Micromax, to launch co-branded 4G devices locked to its network.

"Yeah, Airtel is exploring the option of coming up with arranged offers or devices with Airtel SIM lock-in. However, I will non be able to annotate farther on it because of confidentiality", the unnamed official reportedly told the publication.

The news comes less than a week after reports suggested that Reliance Jio is looking to launch new 'affordable' Android smartphones before the stop of this twelvemonth. The company had announced a tie-up with Google earlier this year for precisely this reason, so it will be interesting to see how things will get in the coming days.