To begin with, Airtel will be offering, under its Infinity postpaid plan, 5/10/15GB of free 4G/3G mobile every month for a year. Postpaid customers will be required to purchase the phone on a contract which starts from Rs 19,990 for the base variant of iPhone 7 and on top of that, monthly charges will vary based on the selected plans. The monthly plans range from Rs 1999, 2499 and 2999 with 5GB, 10GB and 15GB free data, respectively. For the uninitiated, Airtel’s ‘myPlan Infinity’ series offers unlimited voice calling (local, STD, and national roaming) with bundled SMS and internet combos. Additionally, the postpaid package furnishes access to Wynk Music and Wynk Movies entertainment services. Once the yearly contract has expired, you can either return the device or pay the balloon payment which will also vary from based on the variant you chose. This will roughly translate to Rs 80,000 for the entry-level package over the course of a year.
Jio, on the other hand, is providing 12 months of complimentary access to its Digital Services with every iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus or iPhone SE, iPhone 7 and 7 Plus purchase from Reliance Digital stores, selected Apple Premium Resellers (APR) and Apple Authorized Resellers (AAR). The services, which are worth over Rs 18,000, include unlimited local, STD as well as national roaming voice, unlimited text, 20GB of 4G Data, 40GB of WiFi Data (From Reliance hotspots) and Unlimited Night 4G Data (2AM-5AM), and lastly, unlimited subscription to premium Jio Applications such as live TV, music streaming app, magazines and much more. Furthermore, these customers will be profiting from home delivery of SIM cards as well as on-the-spot activation in Reliance’s stores. Apart from this, buyers will also receive Reliance Retail coupons worth Rs 15000 and 10% off discount on the second purchase (phew!). This offer is currently only applicable in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru only.
The attractive offers will definitely help Apple as well as telecom partners elevate their user base given the amount of complimentary data involved. Various e-commerce websites are also offering a ton of cashback and exchange plans making it tough for customers to choose whether they want an initial discount or a year of free telecom services.
Whichever way, Apple is the one benefiting the most especially with Jio’s initiative where the offer is applicable for older iPhones too. The Cupertino giant has been struggling lately in the Indian market as new OEMs continue to rise, their previous appeals for aiding the situations have either been rejected or proved futile. To know more about the new iPhones, you can read our early impressions. Update: As per our sources, Reliance Jio also has some interesting corporate plans where they’ll be offering a staggering 25% discount on iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. We will have more details tomorrow.
