Offers raining for Apple’s iPhone 8 and 8 Plus

Online retailers, Citibank and Jio have lined up impressive exchange and buyback deals. Take your pick

If you want to lay your hands on the iPhone 8 as soon as it launches, the Citibank credit card cashback offer works out to be the cheapest. You can team this up with various other offers to get the best deal. Citibank is offering a flat ~10,000 cashback on the new iPhone available for prebooking. If you are someone who changes phones frequently then, in addition to the Citibank cashback, you can go for the Reliance Jio offer that will give you 70 per cent of the iPhone’s value (before tax) to upgrade to a new one next year.

If you purchase the Apple iPhone 8 (64GB) costing ~64,000, and go in for an exchange next year, the company will deduct the goods and services tax (GST) and pay you 70 per cent of the cost of the phone. It means the consumer will get around ~39,500 to upgrade to the new model as the GST on mobile phones is 12 per cent. This is expected to be in the form of Reliance Digital gift vouchers. But, you will also need to take the special Jio plan for the iPhone compulsorily. For this, the phone owner spends ~9,588 in a year. Jio has come up with a ~799 a month plan for the new iPhone that buyers need to take along with the phone mandatorily. In this plan, the phone owner gets 3GB data at 4G speed a day, 100 text messages a day and free voice calls.

“On an average, iPhone users keep the device for two years. But if you want to upgrade the phone, the offer makes a lot of sense as Apple does not run upgrade programmes in India as it does in the US. The user will spend less but more often than he would in the past,” says Raju PP, who runs personal technology blog Techpp.com.

If an individual buys the phone on Flipkart, he can get a guaranteed exchange value by paying ~9. For the iPhone 8 Plus (64 GB), the buyer gets ~38,000 if he exchanges the phone for another one within sixeight months, ~30,000 between nine months and 12 months and ~23,000 between 12 months and 15 months. The phone costs ~73,000.

Then there are also exchange offers available with online retailers. Both Amazon and Flipkart are offering exchange offers up to ~20,341 and ~23,000, respectively, with an additional ~3,000 for older iPhone models.

The other option for consumers is to use cashback websites such as Gopaisa.com and CashKaro.com. But the cashback is limited to 3.2 per cent now. On the Apple iPhone 8 (64GB) that costs ~64,000, you get a cashback of ~2,048. In the online sales by many retailers that ended on Sunday, the cashback was much higher, at eight per cent.

In the US, the iPhone 8 (64GB) is sold for $699 (approximately ~45,600) and the iPhone 8 Plus (64GB) for $799 (approximately ~52,100). In few states, there’s no tax on this price. An individual can ask a friend or relative to get it. “There's no international warranty from the Apple store. Some international third-party retailers, however, offer a legit warranty on select models. The buyer needs to ensure that the iPhone 8 comes with an international warranty that can be serviced in India,” says Chakri K, head of mobile and tablets at Telecom Talk. info.

If you miss the pre-order offers, there is a possibility that cashback and better exchange offers would be available during the Diwali sale in October with the online retailers as well as physical stores. Many experts feel you won’t lose much if you wait for a few weeks.