MAM
Airtel & Karbonn launch affordable smartphones for aspiring India
MUMBAI: In order to strengthen its presence in the ongoing telecom battle, Bharti Airtel will launch two new Android-powered 4G smartphones in partnership with Karbonn Mobiles.
Airtel has also tied-up with Amazon to sell the handsets online. One handset, the A40 Indian, has become available on Amazon from 16 November, A1 Indian and A41 Power will be available on the platform starting next week.
Telco-handset tie-up is a common practice in the West but the phenomenon has hit the Indian market only this year. For telecom companies, such strategic tie-ups with India handset makers may help them take on Reliance Jio. By August 2017, Jio claimed to have 133 million subscribers. At September end, Bharti Airtel has over 282 million subscribers while Vodafone and Idea had 207 million and 190 million subscribers respectively.
Domestic handset maker Micromax, on Wednesday, said it was tying up with Vodafone India to offer a smartphone at Rs 999 if the buyer retains the device for three years. Karbonn had formed a similar partnership with Bharti Airtel for its previous smart feature phone A40, priced at Rs 1399 when Reliance Jio launched a smart feature phone at a starting price of Rs 1500.
Data from Counterpoint Research show that both Micromax and Karbonn have lost market share in the handset category over the past six quarters while Chinese firms Intel and Xiaomi have climbed the charts. The market share of Micromax and Karbonn in India fell to 7.1 per cent and 3.2 per cent respectively, in the April-June quarter this year from 10.2 per cent and 6 per cent in July-September the previous year.
The launch is part of Airtel’s ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative, which is aimed at enabling every Indian to buy a 4G smartphone and get on the digital superhighway. The handsets come bundled with a monthly pack of Rs 169 from Airtel.
The A1 Indian 4G smartphone will be available at Rs 1799 which otherwise would cost Rs 4390 and the A41 Power at Rs 1849 with an MRP of Rs 4290. The 4G smartphones, which are Google certified, run on the latest Android 7.0 Nougat OS and offer full access to all apps on Google Play Store, including YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp. In addition, both smartphones come preloaded with MyAirtel App, Airtel TV and Wynk Music.
Bharti Airtel director of consumer business and CMO Raj Pudipeddi said, “We are delighted to deepen our partnership with Karbonn to fulfil the smartphone aspirations of India. We saw very strong demand for our first offer under the ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative, which validates the broad appeal of this innovative proposition.”
Karbonn Mobiles MD Pardeep Jain added, “The immense response we got for our offer with Airtel helped us add 70 per cent new feature phone users to our existing portfolio. We feel that this partnership will be even more fruitful as it brings more competitively priced 4G smartphones to the market, especially with Amazon India on board.”
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
