Hyderabad: In a multi-pronged app-roach to counter Jio’s low-cost 4G feature phone, telecom operator Bharti Airtel plans to partner with multiple smartphone makers over the next couple of months. On Monday, Airtel announced its partnership with Hyderabad-based Celkon, which has a strong presence in the Telugu-speaking states, to offer a smartphone at an effective price of Rs 1,349.
Reliance Jio has already announced an Internet-enabled feature phone for a refundable deposit of Rs 1,500, and the incumbent operators are now lining up their own bundled offers to counter the offensive. Taking a slight dig at JioPhone, Bharti Airtel CEO for AP and TS Venkatesh Vijayaraghavan said, “The big screen smartphones will provide a better data experience to users.” He added, “This is our second such partnership and some more partnerships are being lined up which will be announced soon.”
