Samsung eyes 2x growth in foldable smartphones this year; partners Axis Bank for credit card

New Delhi: Samsung has partnered with Axis Bank to launch co-branded credit card to provide additional finance option to customers as it eyes two-fold sales growth in its ultra-premium foldable smartphones this year, a top official said on Monday.

Samsung India Senior Vice President for Mobile Business Raju Pullan said the company has focussed on making purchases affordable and it has seen about three times growth in transactions happening through Samsung Finance plus for buying its product.

"We believe that consumer expectations in India are getting upscaled. It was visible in our latest Galaxy series Z Fold 4 and Flip 4. We will end up seeing this year almost 2X growth over last year on the new launches.

"It's really important to actually create various new platforms so that consumers are able to acquire the Samsung products across price points and upgrade themselves to newer technologies," Pullan said.

He said that the company has 30 million registered users of Samsung Pay, which was launched in 2017.

Samsung Finance plus provides finance options to consumers who are availing credit for the first time.

"We are seeing a tremendous response not only in tier 2 and 3 markets but the rural market as well. Last year, we used to do business of about Rs 250 crore per month on the Samsung Finance plus. Almost 50 per cent of users were new to credit consumers.

"This year as we speak, we are averaging at Rs 700 crore on transactions per month. This means that if we provide the right platforms to customers to upgrade, they will get on to it. That's the genesis of our partnership with Axis Bank along with Visa," Pullan said.

The company claims to have sold over 12 lakh Galaxy smartphones worth more than Rs 1,000 crore on the first day of online festive sales at Amazon and Flipkart.

Pullan said that the co-branded credit, for which registration has started, will offer cashback of up to Rs 10,000 to customers throughout the year across all Samsung products and it will be over and above the offers available at that time.

According to the details shared by the company, consumers will have the option to choose between - Visa Signature and Visa Infinite.

On the Signature variant, cardholders will get up to Rs 10,000 cashback annually, with a monthly cashback limit of Rs 2,500. For the Infinite variant, cardholders will get up to Rs 20,000 cashback annually, with a monthly cashback limit of Rs 5,000.

"Through this co-branded credit card, in partnership with Samsung India and Visa, we are reiterating our commitment to drive access to formal credit in India, tapping the wide reach of Samsung India that extends beyond the top 10 cities and aids our objective of card penetration into tier 2 and 3 cities,” Axis Bank MD and CEO Amitabh Chaudhry said.