The country’s largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel, has partnered with HMD Global to offer prepaid subscribers a cashback of Rs 2,000 on the purchase of the Finnish company’s 4G smartphones —Nokia 2 and Nokia 3. Under Bharti’s latest offer, customers who purchase Nokia 3 and Nokia 2, which will come bundled with a special recharge pack of Rs 169 offering 1GB 4G data per day and free local and national calls, will be eligible for a cashback of Rs 2,000. To avail the cashback, customers need to make prepaid recharges worth Rs 3,500 within 18 months to be eligible for the first instalment of Rs 500. Similarly, another set of recharges worth Rs 3,500 are to be made over the next 18 months to be eligible for the second installment of Rs 1,500. With the cashback, effective price of Nokia 2, which is priced at Rs 6,999, will become Rs 4,999, while Nokia 3 that carries a price tag of Rs 9,499 will come for Rs 7,499.

This is Bharti’s second such partnership with a foreign handset maker. Last month, the company tied up with Samsung to offer a select range of 4G smartphones at affordable cost with attractive cashback offers. It also has similar tie-ups on entry-level 4G smartphones with domestic handset makers Karbonn, Intex and Celkon. Bharti has said its strategy of partnering with handset makers to subsidise smartphones is performing well in the market based on the customer response. During a post-result analyst call last month, Bharti Airtel managing director and CEO (India & South Asia) Gopal Vittal said the ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative has witnessed a “very very disproportionate increase”.

Under ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’, Bharti subsidises the cost of 4G smartphones in a bid to encourage feature phone users to upgrade to smartphones as well as to increase internet penetration. It is also to ring-fence its subscribers from Reliance Jio. Analysts were of the view that Bharti will be quick to respond to Jio’s cashbacks and tariff cuts. Only last week, the Reliance Industries subsidiary announced partnership with 22 smartphone manufacturers offering a cashback of Rs 2,200 on purchase of select handsets. Analysts said since the fight is now over market share, Bharti, Idea Cellular and Vodafone India will be quick in responding to Jio’s moves.