Bharti Airtel (Airtel), on Thursday announced the launch of two new Android powered 4G smartphones at the price of a feature phone in partnership with Karbonn Mobiles. The launch is part of Airtel’s ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative, which is aimed at enabling every Indian to buy a 4G smartphone and get on to the digital superhighway.

The ‘A1 Indian’ 4G smartphone will be available at an effective price of Rs 1799 (compared to MRP of Rs 4390) and the ‘A41 Power’ comes at an effective price of Rs 1849 (compared to MRP of Rs 4290). Both devices come with a full touch 4 inch screen, 1 GB RAM, Dual SIM Slots, Dual Camera along with a host of features. The 4G smartphones, which are Google certified, run on the latest Android 7.0 Nougat OS and offer full access to all apps on Google Play Store, including YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp. In addition, both smartphones comes preloaded with MyAirtel App, Airtel TV and Wynk Music to offer a great self-serve and content experience to customers.

Both 4G smartphones come bundled with a monthly pack of Rs 169 from Airtel, which offers generous data and calling benefits.

Today’s launch follows the runaway success of the first 4G smartphone, the A40 Indian, under the Airtel – Karbonn partnership. The smartphone was fully sold out within the first month of launch, underpinning the strong customer endorsement for this highly affordable proposition.

All smartphones under the Airtel-Karbonn partnership will also be available on Amazon India. While A40 Indian is available on Amazon starting today, A1 Indian and A41 Power will be available starting next week. This will add to customer convenience, while considerably enhancing the distribution reach.

“We are delighted to deepen our partnership with Karbonn to fulfill the smartphone aspirations of India. We saw very strong demand for our first offer under the ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative, which validates the broad appeal of this innovative proposition. We are also delighted to have Amazon on board as a partner in this exciting journey and look forward to working closely with them. We believe these partnerships will help us make a significant contribution towards transforming India into a smartphone nation,” said Raj Pudipeddi, Director – Consumer Business & CMO at Bharti Airtel.

“We are delighted to partner with Airtel. The immense response that we got for us our offer with Airtel helped us add 70% new feature phone users to our existing portfolio. We feel that this partnership will be even more fruitful as it brings more competitively priced 4G smartphones to the market, especially with Amazon India on board,” said Pardeep Jain, MD of Karbonn Mobiles.

For the ‘A1 Indian' 4G smartphone, the customer needs to make a down payment of Rs 3299 and for the ‘A41 Power’ 4G smartphone the down payment is Rs 3349. Customers need to make 36 continuous monthly recharges of Rs 169 pack from Airtel. The customer will get a cash refund of Rs 500 after 18 months and another Rs 1000 after 36 months, taking the total cash benefit to Rs 1500.

In case the customer does not wish to opt for the Rs 169 bundled plan, she/he has the flexibility of doing recharges of any denomination and validity as per individual requirements. However, to claim the cash refund benefit, recharges worth Rs 3000 must be done within the first 18 months (to claim the first refund installment of Rs 500) and another Rs 3000 over the next 18 months (to claim the second refund installment of Rs 1000).

The ownership of the smartphone is completely with the customer and there is no need to return the device to Airtel/Karbonn at any point to claim the cash benefit.

Under the ‘Mera Pehla 4G Smartphone’ initiative, Airtel will partner with multiple mobile handset manufacturers to create an ‘open ecosystem’ of affordable 4G smartphones and bring them to market for virtually the price of a feature phone.