Are the Vodafone iPhone 6 Plans Worth It?

Vodafone recently launched plans for the iPhone where they sell you the much sought-after device starting at Rs. 3,599 per month (for 24 months) for the 16GB variant, bundled with rather lavish-sounding plans. So is it worth it or should you just buy the phone separately and stick to your current plan? Lets find out.

Here is what you get from their plan as per their official site:

The 16GB iPhone 6 started selling for a price tag of Rs. 53,500. There’s a good chance you can find a better deal, at the time of publishing this post we could see it for as low as Rs. 49,000.

But let’s assume that you are buying the phone for Rs. 53,500. The Vodafone plan costs Rs. 3,599/month and you have to pay this amount for 24 months.

This means you are paying Vodafone a total of Rs. 86,376 (i.e. 3599 x 24 = 86376)

After deducting the cost of the device i.e. Rs. 53,500, the amount you pay Vodafone for the plan is Rs. 32,876.

So basically the amount you end up paying for the above plan per month is Rs. 1,369 (32876/24=1369)

The EMI remains the same for the remaining variants but you would need to make an extra down payment at the time of purchase if you want a phone more expensive than the iPhone 6 16GB. The down payment details are as follows —

For Rs. 1,369 you get the following benefits:

6000 Local & STD minutes + 6GB of 3G Data + 1500 SMSs

This plan has great value for money if you compare to their standard plans — for instance, the Red 1200 plan gives you only 4000 Local & STD minutes + 3GB of 3G data + 1500 SMSs. But then you have to ask yourself, is your usage so high that you’ll end up making the most of this plan? And, not to forget that SMSing has almost become obsolete for a lot of us thanks to instant messengers like WhatsApp.

We took examples of three people in our office who revealed to us their bill details and created three use cases to analyse for whom this plan is worth:

Person A was a low-end user with sparing usage of 3G.

Person B also sparingly made phone calls but had a heavy data usage.

Person C did make a decent amount of phone calls and was a very high data user.

What we learn from above data is that this plan makes no sense for Person A and Person B as their bill amount is much lower than the plan being offered. On the other hand, Person C is spending way too much on individual plans and it would be better if he opted for the Vodafone iPhone plan. That deal may sound lucrative but if your usage is less, then it makes sense to purchase the phone separately and stay on your existing plan.

Also, the equation changes if you are planning to buy an iPhone directly on EMI, as the interest rate on a 24 month EMI option for the iPhone is 15% on Flipkart. This means you will pay around Rs. 7,000 as interest over and above your monthly bill. When you opt for Vodafone’s plan, there’s no interest over and above the monthly Rs. 3,599 EMI (in all probability, that amount is factored in).

Another point to consider is that you are locked down to Vodafone for a long period of two years. You need to be sure about the quality of service Vodafone offers in your area. Also, there’s a probability that Airtel 4G or Reliance Jio will reach most parts of India before Vodafone (or it probably already has for you). In this case, you’ll be at the mercy of Vodafone to deploy their 4G service, while using a phone that is capable of running on the India-centric TD-LTE (2300MHz) network. Switching to another carrier midway will result in a loss because the EMI will continue for 24 months irrespective of switching to another carrier.

We hope this breakdown helps you make a wise choice before taking the plunge. It sure did help some of us 🙂