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Online rental marketplace for furniture, home appliances and two-wheelers Rentomojo has added high-end smartphone to its list.
It allows consumers to subscribe or get smartphones on lease through the company’s Rental Monthly Instalments (RMI) system. On offer are Apple’s iPhone X and 8, Samsung’s Galaxy S9+, S9, Note 8 and Google Pixel2 for monthly rent ranging from ₹2,099 to ₹9,299 for 6, 12, 18 or 24 months.
RMI model
This service is now available in Bengaluru, Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Noida and will be extended to Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune in the next quarter.
Under Rentomojo’s RMI model, a person renting a mobile handset for one year roughly pays half as much RMI, compared to the conventional EMI (equated monthly installment) to buy the phone. “With new and upgraded versions of mobile phones being introduced every year, customers are changing phones every six months. Our RMI option allows subscribers to upgrade and keep up with the latest device, at a lower cost. Additionally, we offer them the option of owning the product by paying a certain sum, post the lease period,” said Geetansh Bamania, founder-CEO of Rentomojo.
“We are addressing a $6-7 billion market opportunity and are looking at mobile phone rentals becoming 40 per cent of the overall revenue at scale, and increasing our active customer base of 50,000 by 50 per cent in the next few quarters,” added Bamania.
Rentomojo launched the Rent2Own option for household appliances, furniture and two-wheelers for tenures ranging from 3 to 36 months in January. The company partnered Zefo, the online marketplace for pre-owned furniture and appliances, to provide their customers with the RMI option. Asked if the company has taken the mojo out of smartphone sales for e-commerce majors such as like Flipkart and Amazon with this launch, Bamania said: “They are not our competition because we are a leasing company and provide an alternative to the EMI option that e-commerce firms are offering. We are looking to partner with e-commerce portals to offer the RMI option to their customers, just like our partnership with Zefo.”
Rentomojo has also launched Google Home, which can be rented for ₹399 a month.
Rentomojo has raised $17 million through pre-series, series A and B funding from Accel Partners, IDG Ventures, Bain Capital and Renaud Laplanche to date. It hopes to break-even in FY 2021 and go in for an IPO in FY 2023,
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