Hike partners Airtel to embed ‘Total’ on affordable smartphones

Messaging app Hike today announced a strategic pact with telecom operator Bharti Airtel for its new service 'Total'. Hike will embed Total on smartphones under Airtel's 'Mera Pehla Smartphone' initiative.

A recently announced offering by Hike, 'Total' allows users to access essential services such as messaging, news, recharge and others without a data connection.

"Starting March 2018, select smartphones under the 'Mera Pehla Smartphone' will be shipped with Total as a pre- installed feature," said a joint release by the two companies.

Commenting on the development, Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder and CEO of Hike, said, "With 'Total on Mera Pehla Smartphones', first-time users will find it easy understand and navigate a smartphone. Using data is also simplified and Total users can get online with special data packs starting as low as Re 1".

Total by Hike offers a single login through one's phone number for all of Total services like Messaging, news, horoscope, recharge, wallet, cricket scores and rail information. These services offered on Total are sized below 1MB. Total also allows users to use these services without internet connectivity. Lastly, Total users can purchase Sachet Data packs which start as low as Re 1.

Under the Mera Pehla Smartphone programme launched in October 2017, Airtel partnered with multiple mobile handset manufacturers to bring bundled 4G smartphones at affordable prices, to the market.

As part of this initiative, Airtel has already joined hands with handset makers like Celkon and Karbonn Mobiles to offer a low-cost bundled 4G smartphones, in a bid to counter an offensive by JioPhone.