If you are living in India, this is probably the best time to buy a smartphone and not to our surprise, a lot of companies are offering their products at a discounted rate. One such offer recently came from the telecom giant Airtel where the company is offering iPhone 7 for Rs 7,777. Tempting right? Well, it comes with a bunch of caveats though. Let’s break down the offer first before we jump into whether you should avail it or not.
Airtel iPhone 7 32GB Offer
>>First things first, this offer is only available for postpaid customers only and isn’t applicable to everyone. In other words, the telecom giant will first analyze your creditworthiness before you can actually avail this offer.
>>Next, Rs 7,777 is just the down payment and it changes with the model i.e. if you are buying an iPhone 128GB iPhone 7 Plus 32GB, and iPhone 7 Plus 128GB, the down payment rises up to Rs. 16,300, Rs. 17,300, and Rs. 26,000, respectively.
>> That’s not it, the catch here is that once you enroll for this offer, you automatically agree to subscribe for Rs 2,499 postpaid plan per month for 24 months. In exchange you get 30 GB of Mobile Data each month, unlimited calls, a new connection for your family member and 2 year warranty and insurance for your iPhone 7.
Let’s do some maths here. Picking up the iPhone 7 32GB from Airtel Store, we pay Rs 7,777 as down payment and subscribe for Rs 2,499 postpaid plan for 24 months which makes it to Rs 67,753 ( Rs 7,777 + Rs 59,976). And this is exclusive of taxes.
Now, if we head to Flipkart or any offline store, I can get the iPhone 7 (32GB) easily for Rs 40,000 or less with no extra cost whatsoever. So why would someone avail this offer?
Why should you avail this offer?
Well, there are a couple of advantages if your monthly mobile bill easily touches the Rs 2,500 mark. First, you get extended warranty and damage protection for the whole 24 months. Second, You essentially pay off the full amount over a period of time and not at once.
Why should you not avail this offer?
We are pretty sure a lot of you would fall under this category. If you are a prepaid customer and plan to be in the same boat, this offer is a straight no for you. You are better off buying the iPhone 7 from any other store in the market for a normal price.
If you are a postpaid customer and doesn’t usually end up paying Rs 2,500 every month, you should probably ignore this offer as well. I agree, a lot of us out there use airtel postpaid connection but do we really spend that much on mobile data or calls every month? Not a lot, we assume.
We are not sure what percentage of the audience is Airtel trying to target here but with price elasticity up to the brim in a country like India, this offer doesn’t really offer the value it appears to at the first instance.