Vodafone, Samsung partner on bundled service offer

Telcos rush to introduce low-cost 4G devices to preserve user base

India’s second largest telecom operator Vodafone has announced a partnership with mobile handset manufacturer Samsung to offer cashback offers on a select range of 4G devices.
 
Vodafone subscribers can avail cashback of Rs 1,500 on the purchase of Galaxy J2 Pro, Galaxy J7 Nxt or Galaxy J7 Max devices. The cash back will be credited to their Vodafone M-Pesa wallets.
 
“We are incentivizing our customers to enjoy the Vodafone SuperNet 4G data strong network on some of Samsung’s most popular 4G smartphones. With this partnering, we now offer cashback over the widest spectrum of 4G smartphones across various price points,” said Avneesh Khosla, Associate Director – Consumer Business, Vodafone India.

 

Prepaid customers have to simply recharge with Rs 198 per month for 24 months which would give them unlimited voice calls and 1GB data/day (the customer can also do any other recharge cumulating to Rs 198 per month).
 
Postpaid customers need to opt into any one of Vodafone’s Red Plans. At the end of the first 12 months, users will receive a cashback of Rs 600 and after another 12 months, a cashback of Rs 900 respectively, thus availing a total cashback of Rs 1,500.

“Today, every third smartphone sold in India is a Galaxy J series device. We are happy to partner with Vodafone as it gives us another opportunity to enhance the consumer experience, combining our popular Galaxy J series smartphones with their services at affordable prices,” said Ranjivjit Singh, Chief Marketing Officer, Samsung India.

 
The offer attempts to not only increase Vodafone’s reach across the 4G aspiring consumer base but also offer a user base for their M-Pesa wallet services which has around 14 million registered users currently. A previous Vodafone offer on iTel phones also offers Rs 2,100 cashback to subscribers to their M-Pesa account.
 
 Vodafone has 38 per cent smartphone using subscriber base as per latest data. Over the past quarter, the telco has introduced a host of bundled content with data services to boost the data subscription.
 
Incumbent telecom operators like Vodafone, Airtel and Idea have been in a rush to preserve their subscriber base which has been under threat from Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio’s services. Vodafone lost 1.5 million data customers in June-September quarter.

 
Airtel has already launched a number of low-cost 4G enabled smartphones under the “Mera Pehla 4G Smartphone” initiative. Reliance Jio was the first in the fray to launch a low cost 4G enabled phone to complement their disruptive prices last year.