Hike Partners with Airtel to Bring 'Total, built by hike' on Devices Under ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ Initiative

Hike announced a strategic partnership with Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”) to embed ‘Total, built by hike’ on mobile devices under Airtel’s ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative.

Starting March 2018, select smartphones under the ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ will be shipped with Total as a pre-installed feature. With the added benefit of ‘Total’ on all Mera Pehla Smartphone, users can access essential services such as Messaging, News, Recharge and more even without an active data connection and easily get online with access to data packs for as low as Re.1/-.

‘Total, built by hike’, a refined version of Android, has 4 key elements that combine together make the end to end experience extremely seamless and simple:

1. Single Login:A Single Login via the Phone Number for all of Total services such as Messaging, News, Horoscope, Recharge, Wallet, Cricket Scores and Rail information.
2. Light Services < 100 kb to 1 MB: Services on ‘Total, built by hike’ take between < 100 kb to 1 MB ensuring a lightweight footprint on the device.
3. Works without Data:All of the services built on Total can be accessed even without Data via proprietary technology.
4. Sachet Data Packs:Users will be able to purchase Sachet Data Packs starting as low as Re. 1 from inside the Total experience itself with the goal of lowering the cost of access and introducing people to data.

Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder and CEO, 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/-. This is really powerful. We are very clear that to get a billion people online, we need to make the whole process of coming online a lot simpler,  less intimidating as well as cost-effective and this partnership with Airtel is likely to do that”

Nikhil Gilani, Head, Devices & E-commerce, Bharti Airtel said, “Airtel’s ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ has been a pathbreaking initiative towards removing barriers to smartphone adoption in India and has received very positive response from customers. We share Hike’s vision of helping every Indian own a smartphone and benefit from the digital super-highway. We look forward to collaborating with all our partners under this initiative to give every Indian access to a smartphone, bring them online and be a part of Digital India.”

Airtel’s ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’, which was launched in October 2017, is an initiative is aimed at enabling every Indian to buy a 4G smartphone. Airtel has partnered with multiple mobile handset manufacturers to create an ‘open ecosystem’ of affordable 4G smartphones and bring them to market at budget-friendly prices.

According to published reports, by 2020, over 700 million people are expected to be on smartphones with many of them being first time users. This can be quite a complicated and intimidating experience for them. With ‘Total’, users bypass the 15–20 step process to come online and only go through a few steps to enjoy their smartphones with its multitude services.