Airtel partners Ditto TV; launches new super app
Competition makes for strange bedfellows. Airtel is partnering with Zee Entertainment Enterprises' dittoTV app as it seeks to battle the onslaught of Reliance Jio. Airtel has relaunched its MyAirtel App as a super app housing many other apps amongst which figures DittoTV. The telco said that Ditto TV with over 100 live TV channels and popular TV shows will be available without any subscription charges to its customers.
Other apps which feature in the new MyAirtel app include Hike Messenger, Wynk Music, Wynk Movies, Wynk Games, Airtel Money, Airtel Dialer and Juggernaut. All of them are apparently being made available free to subscribers.
The MyAirtel app also features Airtel Cloud and Airtel Dialer. Airtel Cloud provides 2GB of free cloud storage and back-up. The company said that there are no data upload charges for the scheduled overnight backups for prepaid customers currently, and this benefit will be made available to postpaid customers soon.
Airtel Dialer, on the other hand, offers 50 minutes of free Airtel-to-Airtel calling benefits, in addition to its call management feature.
With the launch of its new app suite, it’s quite clear that it’s going to be a corporate war in the mobile 4G space. First, Airtel, and Vodafone, Idea blocked calls from free call provider Reliance Jio until they were forced to open up to its services. Hence, the other players including Idea and Airtel are gearing up to attack Jio in the app space too. Idea too is currently putting together an app suite which will be unveiled by Q4-2017 and Q1-2018.
Said Bharati Airtel global CIO & director Harmeen Mehta: “As part of our Digital Airtel initiative, we are excited to bring you the new avatar of the MyAirtel App, which now offers a unified interface to the entire suite of our popular mobile apps and several new ones. All these apps have been curated to ensure customers are offered the best of the web, with more exciting apps and partnerships coming in the near future.
Customers who already have MyAirtel App on their smartphone can update to receive the new features, while new users can download the new MyAirtel App from Google Playstore and iOS App Store. The telco said that normal plan or pack data charges will apply on all the mobile applications on MyAirtel app.
Airtel is also working overnight to put together interesting data plans for potential customer. A couple of weeks earlier, the super telco had launched a special 4G data plan which offered data free for 90 days. Now, it is offering 15 GB of 3G--4G data at the price of 1 GB. The offer is valid for its pre-paid customers using Samsung J series of smart phones. Among the models which can opt for this offer include: Samsung J2 (2015 and 2016 models), Samsung J7 (2015 and 2016 models), Samsung J5 (2015 and 2016 models), Samsung J Max and Samsung J2 Pro.
The 3G--4G data is available to customers in 4G circles only. In non-4G circles, viewers can enjoy 1 GB of data any time of the day, but 4 GB can only be utilized between midnight and 6 AM.
http://www.indiantelevision.com/iworld/over-the-top-services/airtel-partners-ditto-tv-launches-new-super-app-161013
