Bharti Airtel and Bajaj Finance have an incredibly tempting offer for those who want to lay their hands on the new Apple iPhone 7 series – cough up Rs 19990 as down payment on the 32GB version and sign up for monthly plans for up to a year with the service provider. Fans of the iPhone 7 Plus can get the base model for Rs 30792 alternately, or even go for the higher capacity iPhones.
Since the 32GB, 128GB and 256GB iPhone 7 cost Rs 60000, Rs 70000 and Rs 80000, respectively, it’s a pretty good offer. The iPhone 7 Plus models are priced at Rs 72000, Rs 82000 and Rs 92000, in that order. There’s a small catch though. Airtel is only extending the deal to employees of select enterprises (company names not available; check if eligible by going to this link) it has tied up with.
Additionally, it’s only open to existing customers of the Infinity plan who have not activated any offer on their handset for the past 3 months. The Rs 1999 monthly scheme is worth 5GB data and unlimited calling, while the Rs 2499 plan delivers 10GB data and unlimited calling. Subscribers get 15GB data and unlimited calling on the Rs 2999 bundle.
The catch –
Those who sign up for Airtel’s tempting deal, have to consider a number of things. Firstly, they won’t be able to port their number to another provider or switch between prepaid and postpaid services. Secondly, if they want to hang onto their 32GB iPhone 7 at the end of 12 months instead of upgrading, they’ll have to make a ‘balloon payment’ of Rs 24000 to Bajaj Finance.
It’ll cost more for the higher capacity iPhone 7 and the 7 Plus, of course. So technically, customers will just be ‘renting’ an iPhone until the iPhone 8 comes out. The down payment on the 128GB iPhone 7 is Rs 29490, while it is Rs 35990 for the 256GB variant. Apple’s 128GB and 256GB iPhone 7 Plus models are going for Rs 37292 and Rs 43792, under this scheme.
Folks who are not eligible for the offer can gain a small measure of comfort from having to shell out the whole price for the iPhone 7 – they get to keep it. And Airtel is proffering 10GB of 4G/3G data, unlimited voice calling, SMS and national roaming for free for a whole year on the new Apple smartphones. An open subscription to Wynk apps for movies and music is on the cards too.
Save Rs 18000 on Reliance Jio –
We can’t talk about great subscription deals for the latest iPhone lineup and forget Reliance Jio of course. iPhone 7 owners in India can access the company’s Welcome Offer of free services until December 31. From 2017, they can continue to enjoy complimentary data, calling and SMS for a whole year, something that would would otherwise have cost them Rs 18000.