Telcos, Flipkart cash in on iPhone 7 fever

Jio, Airtel offer special plans; Bansals turn delivery boys for iPhone buyers

The fight between telecom operators Reliance Jio and Airtel for a share of the market is playing out around the iPhone 7, which debuted in India on Friday.

Reliance Jio said consumers purchasing a new iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus at Reliance Digital stores, select Apple premium resellers and Apple authorised resellers would get 12 months of complimentary Jio Digital Services worth Rs 18,000, including unlimited local, STD calls and unlimited text, 20 GB of 4G data, 40 GB of Wi-Fi data and unlimited night 4G data.

Mathew Oommen, President, Jio, said the telecom operator also has special offers for enterprise users, including discounts on purchase of the new iPhones along with Jio tariff plans. The offers, Oommen said, were also valid on iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone SE.

Not to be left behind, Airtel is offering iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus users 10 GB free 4G/3G data a month for one year. This is applicable on Airtel Infinity postpaid plans, Ajai Puri, director, operations (India & South Asia), said. Over the duration of one year, Puri said, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus users on Airtel Infinity plans would get additional 120 GB 4G/3G data.

In Bengaluru, Binny Bansal, co-founder and chief executive officer of Flipkart, delivered to a customer the first iPhone 7 within 30 minutes of the launch of the smartphone.

Bansal, wearing the official blue jersey of Flipkart’s delivery arm Ekart, rode pillion on a motorbike with his delivery colleague to reach the home of one Gaurav, who became the first Flipkart customer to get the iPhone 7. For both the Bansals — Sachin in his hometown Chandigarh and Binny in Bengaluru — it was a day of delivering products and meeting customers who had purchased these on the e-commerce platform.

Flipkart had claimed over 100,000 consumers had shopped for products during the five-day sale that concluded on Thursday. Some of these shoppers would have ordered iPhone 7s, which cost upwards of Rs 60,000.

Hoards of people thronged the Apple Store at Bengaluru’s upmarket UB City mall this evening in anticipation of the launch of the latest iPhone 7. They were all waiting impatiently to be the first to get their hands on the new device.