Airtel, which is on a roll by expanding its 4G services to a number of cities in India is planning to launch 4G branded smartphones in India, as per a latest report from PTI.
The telecom giant is looking forward to launch 4G smartphones in the country within a price range of Rs 4,000- Rs 12,000 by October- November this year. Airtel is in the stage of finalizing vendors and is in advanced talks with Chinese vendors and also Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn. The company is deciding whether these phones will be company branded handsets or co-branded handsets, according to the report.
Moreover, it is said that the handsets which will support FDD and TDD LTE network will come with long term bundled plan that may not be restricted only to Airtel. The latest move comes from the company after RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani announced plans to launch 4G mobile phones for less than Rs 4,000 with Reliance Jio Infocomm.
Last week, Airtel launched its 4G LTE trails in Hubli and Dharwad in Karnataka. It has already launched 4G trails in Delhi, Hyderabad, Vizag, Madurai, Chennai, Coimbatore and Mumbai. At present the 4G service from Airtel is live in cities like Nagpur, Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Chandigarh, and Patiala among others.