We’ve partnered with @Visa_IND to bring exclusive offers on your everyday payments. 😀

Get up to ₹100 off on recharges & bill payments and up to ₹50 off on Metro tickets with select Visa cards.
Explore the offers on the Paytm app. 📲 pic.twitter.com/0jqnS4YTtu

— Paytm (@Paytm) October 6, 2026

Exclusive offers on Recharges, bill payments and metro travel

The partnership brings exclusive offers for Visa credit and debit cardholders across Metro ticket bookings, mobile prepaid and postpaid recharges, and bill payments for electricity, water, broadband, DTH, gas cylinder, piped gas and FASTag on Paytm. Each offer can be availed by applying the applicable promo code before completing payment.

Metro ticket bookings

Visa credit and debit cardholders can get 50% off up to Rs 50 on Metro ticket bookings on Paytm (with no minimum transaction value), twice per card each month. Visa cardholders can also get 25% off up to Rs 20 on Metro ticket bookings through Paytm, with no minimum transaction value. This offer can be availed 5 times per card each month, adding further savings for regular metro commuters.

Mobile recharges and bill payments

From October 1, 2026, Visa Classic Debit and Visa Platinum Debit cardholders can get a flat 10% off up to Rs 100 on payments of Rs 299 or more. The offer covers mobile prepaid and postpaid recharges, electricity, water, broadband, DTH, gas cylinder, piped gas and FASTag.

Visa Platinum Credit cardholders can get a flat 5% off up to Rs 100 on payments of Rs 299 or more. The offer covers mobile prepaid and postpaid recharges, electricity, water, broadband, DTH, gas cylinder and piped gas.

The offers can be availed once per card per month per user. The recharge and bill payment offers are valid from October 1 to December 31, 2026.

Paytm Promo Codes

Metro tickets

• Visa Debit card 50% off up to Rs 50: VISADC50
• Visa Credit card 50% off up to Rs 50: VISACC50
• Visa Debit card 25% off up to Rs 20: VISADC
• Visa Credit card 25% off up to Rs 20: VISACC

Recharges and Bill payments

• Visa Classic Debit Card Flat 10% off up to Rs 100: VISACLASSICDC
• Visa Platinum Debit Card Flat 10% off up to Rs 100: VISAPLATINUMDC
• Visa Platinum Credit Card Flat 5% off up to Rs 100: VISAPLATINUMCC

How to avail Visa offers on Paytm?

• Open the Paytm app and select Metro ticketing, mobile recharge or the relevant bill payment category
• Proceed to payment and choose the eligible Visa credit or debit card
• Apply the applicable promo code before completing payment

The post Paytm partners with Visa to bring exclusive offers on recharges, bill payments and metro travel appeared first on The Tech Outlook.

The agreement reflects the companies’ shared commitment to intellectual property rights and to licensing practices consistent with fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) principles.

This licensing agreement not only demonstrates the value of Huawei’s innovations, but also recognises Qualcomm’s foundational contributions to modern communication technologies. The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of required regulatory approvals from relevant jurisdictions. The companies have not revealed the specific financial terms or the exact duration of the multi-year term.

“Huawei’s decades of sustained investment in fundamental R&D have driven innovation and progress in mobile communications and other technology fields. Huawei’s broad contributions to the 4G/5G standards, such as the near-physical-limit signal transmission technology using polar codes, have established Huawei’s leadership in the mobile communications industry, and continuously transformed the way people communicate and live,” said Alan Fan, Huawei’s Chief Intellectual Property Officer. “This agreement not only demonstrates the value of Huawei’s innovations, but also recognises Qualcomm’s foundational contributions to modern communication technologies.”

“Qualcomm has invested in foundational wireless technologies that have enabled successive generations of mobile innovation and earned broad recognition across the global wireless industry. This agreement reaffirms industry recognition of Qualcomm’s 5G technology leadership and the success of Qualcomm’s 5G SEP licensing program,” said John Han, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Qualcomm Technology Licensing. “This agreement likewise reflects Qualcomm’s recognition of Huawei’s continued innovation and intellectual property in 5G and other technology fields.”

The post Huawei and Qualcomm announce a multi-year broad patent license agreement appeared first on The Tech Outlook.

Read more about it below

Apple Pay – Now Available in India

As stated above, Apple Pay is now available in India, which will allow users to make contactless payments at NFC-enabled stores, along with payments within supported apps and websites. At the moment, Apple Pay is available on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, with support for Mac expected soon.

To add an eligible card, users will have to open the Apple Wallet app on their iPhone first, then tap the ‘+’ icon and simply follow the on-screen instructions and complete the verification process. Users can also add their cards through the latest version of the Axis Bank app.

Additionally, if you already have the Axis Bank app installed on your iPhone, there is another way to do it. Open Apple Wallet, tap the ‘+’ icon and look for ‘Axis Bank Mobile’ under the ‘From Your iPhone’ section. Tap on it and follow the on-screen instructions to add your eligible credit card.

To make a payment in stores, double-click the side or Home button, depending on your iPhone model. Authenticate using Face ID, Touch ID or your device passcode, and hold the device near the contactless terminal. Users will not have to enter a card PIN or OTP at checkout.

For iPhone users, the listed requirements are an iPhone XR or newer running iOS 18 or later. Apple Watch Series 6 and newer models are also supported. However, UPI payments, RuPay cards and debit cards are currently not supported in the Indian rollout.

Looking into security and privacy, Apple Pay uses an encrypted Device Account Number stored in the device’s Secure Element and the actual card number is not shared with merchants or stored on Apple’s servers. Apple also says it does not retain transaction information that can be linked back to the user. In case the device goes missing, users can locate it through Find My and activate Lost Mode to suspend Apple Pay.

The launch merchants include Apple Store, Blinkit, Chaayos, Comet, Croma, Interflora, Ixigo, Le15 Patisserie, Reliance brands, Tata 1mg and Zomato. Also, Cashfree, JusPay, Mswipe, Paytm, PayU, Pine Labs, Razorpay and Worldline are among the payment-service partners supporting the rollout.

Stay tuned for more such updates.

The post Apple Pay launches in India with Axis Bank credit card support, but no UPI or RuPay appeared first on The Tech Outlook.

According to a report by Counterpoint Research, the recent hikes have pushed India’s average smartphone selling price to a record $318 in Q2 2026.

Indian smartphone average price hike

Smartphone prices in India rose 16% on average in the first half of 2026, but OnePlus kept its own increase to 8%.

Phones priced below INR 10,000 saw the sharpest hikes, around 32% on average. Shipments in the sub-INR 10,000 segment fell 65% YoY in H1 2026, and the INR 10,000-15,000 band dropped 20%. Phones above INR 20,000 kept growing, helped by higher launch prices, trade-in offers and no-cost EMIs that made pricier devices easier to afford.

Due to this situation, most brands passed a large share of those costs on to buyers but OnePlus took a different route. Its single price increase was 12%, compared with 113% for the rest of the industry. The lower hikes also did not hurt the brand’s growth. As per the report, OnePlus was also the fastest-growing brand among the top five brands on online channels in the >INR 20,000 price bands in Q2 2026. The company’s shipments are forecasted to grow 5% YoY in the quarter, while the overall market is expected to shrink by double digits.

How did OnePlus managed to do this?

It is reported that OnePlus stocked up on components earlier in the year, locking in memory at older, lower prices before costs rose sharply. It also has nine active smartphone models priced between roughly INR 16,999 and INR 93,999, with few gaps between them, allowing it to spread higher costs across the lineup rather than concentrating them in its most price-sensitive models.

According to Counterpoint Research data, OnePlus was the No. 1 brand on online channels in the INR 30,000-INR 45,000 band. In Q2 2026, it was also the fastest-growing brand among the top five on online channels in the >INR 20,000 price bands. OnePlus shipments rose 49% QoQ in Q2 2026, when cost pressure was at its worst, and the brand gained share YoY even as overall market shipments fell. According to OnePlus data, the Nord 6 and the Nord CE6 series were the highest-selling models on Amazon on their launch day sales, in their respective price bands. Also, OnePlus was the top-selling brand on Amazon Prime Day in the INR 15,000-65,000 segment.

Further, the report mentioned that memory prices are unlikely to come down before 2028, and brands that planned for it early, like OnePlus, will continue to grow.

The post Smartphone prices in India rose 16% on average in H1 2026, but OnePlus continued to grow even with lower hikes: Counterpoint Research appeared first on The Tech Outlook.

Following this acquisition, OpenAI has decided to end its partnership with Cursor.

We’re ending our partnership with Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX. Under our proposal, Cursor’s direct access to our models would end on November 12.

We know that the people most affected by this decision are the developers who rely on OpenAI models in Cursor. We care…

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) August 29, 2026

OpenAI has notified SpaceX that it intends to wind down its contract providing OpenAI models to Cursor, with a proposed shutoff date of 12^th November, 2026. The company has specified that it is making this decision because it cannot be confident that SpaceX will use OpenAI’s technology within its terms of service, based on OpenAI’s experience with Elon Musk’s companies violating contracts.

In the announcement blog, OpenAI revealed that after Musk acquired Twitter, now part of SpaceX, the company broke the terms of OpenAI’s contract, and under oath earlier this year, Musk admitted that xAI had violated OpenAI’s terms of service.

OpenAI ‘s custom agreement with Cursor gives them a limited time window to cancel it after a change of control. The company also wants to make sure that the upcoming model Astra is being used in accordance with its terms. Therefore, they have decided to hold the contract cancellation to the latest date they can while not providing future models to Cursor.

We’re sorry to see that OpenAI put out a note saying they plan to block Cursor users from accessing OpenAI models in three months.

OpenAI models serve about 5% of Cursor user traffic, and we’re speaking with the OpenAI team to resolve this.

Cursor was one of the very first…

— Michael Truell (@mntruell) August 29, 2026

Reacting to this news, Cursor’s co-founder and CEO, Michael Truell, posted on X that the company is sorry to hear OpenAI’s announcement. He also mentioned that OpenAI’s models serve about 5% of Cursor user traffic, and the company is speaking with the OpenAI team to resolve this.

The post OpenAI announces to end its partnership with Cursor after its acquisition by SpaceX; Cursor CEO reacts appeared first on The Tech Outlook.

ChatGPT Ads expand across Europe

Starting next week, ChatGPT ads will expand to 31 European countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria.

Advertisers will initially be able to access ChatGPT Ads through the OpenAI Ads Solutions team, agency partners, and technology partners. Self-service access through Ads Manager will follow later this summer.

As in OpenAI’s existing markets, ads will be shown only to users on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro and Enterprise subscriptions will remain ad-free.

Businesses interested in getting started can sign up at ads.openai.com.

About ChatGPT Ads

ChatGPT Ads allow marketers to reach people across the customer journey as they explore and evaluate their options, and to be useful in the moments that spur discovery, shape decisions, and lead to purchase.

Regarding privacy, OpenAI clarified that, guided by its ads principles, conversations are kept private from advertisers and customer data is not sold. Ads in ChatGPT are always clearly labelled and separated from ChatGPT’s answers, and advertising does not influence the answers ChatGPT provides.

Meanwhile, users also have control over ad personalisation, with ad-free paid plans available for those who prefer not to see ads.

OpenAI has built the ChatGPT ads platform from the ground up:

• The company expanded beyond CPM and CPC bidding to support conversion optimisation, helping advertisers optimise toward their business goals.
• Introduced geo-targeting and custom audiences to help advertisers reach more relevant customers.
• Expanded measurement beyond clicks through the OpenAI Pixel, Conversions API, and third-party measurement integrations, giving advertisers a more complete view of how ChatGPT Ads contribute to business outcomes.

It has been revealed that tens of thousands of marketers have now advertised on ChatGPT, and the company continues to improve the platform based on what it learns from people and businesses.

The post OpenAI announces expansion of ChatGPT ads across 31 European countries appeared first on The Tech Outlook.

Read more about these below.

BSNL Fibre Freedom Plan – Specs and Benefits

Starting with the new broadband offering, BSNL has introduced the Fibre Freedom Plan at a special launch price of INR 1,111 per month. Under the plan, users get internet speeds of up to 200Mbps along with 5,000GB of monthly data.

Another major highlight of this plan is the bundled entertainment offering, as users will get access to more than 25 premium OTT platforms with a single connection. Some of the platforms shown by BSNL include JioHotstar, Sony LIV, ZEE5, Lionsgate Play, ShemarooMe, Hungama, EPIC ON, Chaupal, hoichoi, WAVES Premium, ManoramaMAX, FanCode, NammaFlix and Dollywood Play, among others.

Apart from this, the plan also offers 24×7 unlimited calling to any number across India, while a dual-band Wi-Fi ONT is included with the connection.

Speaking of the offer, this plan otherwise costs INR 1,199 per month, but BSNL is currently offering an INR 88 discount every month for six months, bringing its monthly price down to INR 1,111 during the offer period.

BSNL Launches New Selfcare App

Apart from the new broadband offer, BSNL has also revamped its Selfcare mobile app as part of its digital transformation efforts. Called BSNL Selfcare New, the app has been introduced on both Android and iOS platforms and is aimed at providing users with a smoother and easier way to manage their BSNL services.

Users can make prepaid recharges, pay postpaid, landline and FTTH bills, register and track complaints, manage DND preferences, check payment history and even place Fibre booking requests directly through the app.

Furthermore, BSNL has also added AI chatbot support, voice search, multiple-account management and access to BSNL Entertainment TV within the new Selfcare app.

The app is available through both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

BSNL Partners With Polycab for Make in India Telecom Manufacturing

Lastly, BSNL has announced a new partnership with Polycab aimed at advancing indigenous telecom manufacturing under the Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat initiatives.

At the centre of this collaboration is Polycab’s Electronic Manufacturing Services or EMS facility, which will be used for assembling and manufacturing telecom and networking equipment in India. Products mentioned as part of the partnership include cameras, ONTs, routers and other networking equipment.

Another interesting thing about this partnership is the use of a Hardware-as-a-Service (HaaS) model. Through this, BSNL aims to assist in deploying scalable, cost-effective and future-ready infrastructure without requiring heavy upfront investment.

The partnership is also aimed at strengthening domestic manufacturing, improving supply-chain self-reliance and further developing India’s telecom ecosystem.

With the new Fibre Freedom broadband offer, revamped Selfcare app and Polycab partnership, BSNL has announced multiple consumer and infrastructure-focused initiatives as part of its Independence Day celebrations.

Stay tuned for more updates!

The post BSNL Announces ₹1,111 Fibre Freedom Plan, New Selfcare App and Polycab Partnership appeared first on The Tech Outlook.

Airtel Business enters into a partnership with ITI Limited

This collaboration will combine the complementary strengths and engineering excellence of ITI Limited and Airtel Business to help enterprises across the country modernize legacy systems, improve operational efficiency, strengthen security, and respond faster to changing business demands.

Through an integrated suite of future-ready and scalable digital solutions across enterprise connectivity, data center & sovereign cloud services, IoT, AI-powered solutions, LEO satellite services, cybersecurity and more, the partnership will enable businesses to overcome legacy complexity, strengthen digital resilience, and build for the future to unlock new growth opportunities.

Sharat Sinha, CEO – Airtel Business, said, “As India accelerates into its next phase of digital growth, building a foundation that is resilient, sovereign, and regulatorily compliant is imperative. As a trusted partner to enterprises across the country, at Airtel Business, we have consistently helped them simplify complexity, transform legacy environments, and enable digitization at scale. Today, we are delighted to partner with ITI Limited in a shared ambition to create future-ready technology solutions that strengthen business continuity, unlock innovation, and support India’s secure digital-first future.”

The collaboration will help businesses across industries to address key challenges of fragmented legacy environments, rising cybersecurity risks, growing data demands, and the need for greater operational agility.

The partnership will deliver nationwide digital and telecom infrastructure, combining high-speed enterprise connectivity with secure data center and sovereign cloud services. The platform will also integrate industrial IoT asset tracking, AI-powered analytics, and full-stack cybersecurity solutions. Meanwhile, the collaboration would also try to support the defence and security needs of the nation through innovation, Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat focus.

The post Airtel Business and ITI Limited enter into a strategic partnership to help enterprises in India fast-track their digital transformation appeared first on The Tech Outlook.

Well, the speculation spread like wildfire and started raising concerns among the people. The Indian government has now finally put an end to all the speculation by issuing a clarification on the matter.

No Charges for UPI users

The government has stated that consumers making payments will not face any transaction charges. All person-to-person transactions will continue to be free of charge.

The amendment is said to be an enabling provision that is designed to ensure UPI’s long-term sustainability, technological advancement, and resilience against emerging risks. With exponential transaction volumes, the system requires significant and continuous upgrades in cybersecurity, fraud prevention and infrastructure. The amendment is said to be necessary for market expansion and self-sustainability.

Regarding the false narratives, it was stated that “The amendment should therefore be viewed in the context of the Government’s broader objective of ensuring that India’s digital payment infrastructure remains sustainable, competitive, innovative and capable of serving the country’s rapidly expanding digital economy.”

Further, it was mentioned that as and when Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) charges are introduced, they will apply only to a limited set of merchant transactions, above a certain threshold, at a nominal rate, far lower than debit or credit card MDRs. MDR, if introduced, will only be threshold-based and not blanketly levied on all.

It is revealed that once the Parliament passes the Taxation and Other Law (Amendment) Bill, 2026, which proposes to amend Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, the “UPI and Services Steering Committee” headed by NPCI will decide on MDR, if any.

The vast majority of the transactions will remain free of charge for merchants on UPI. The citizens are requested to rely only on official information from the Ministry of Finance, the Reserve Bank of India and NPCI, and not to forward unverified messages.

The post Indian Government clarifies UPI will remain free for citizens; Any future MDR will be nominal and will apply only to a limited set of merchant transactions appeared first on The Tech Outlook.

Till now, Xiaomi has been selling smartphones, tablets, Smart TVs and AIoT devices in the Indian market. Xiaomi India’s Associate Director of Marketing and PR announced the launch of Mijia by Xiaomi as the company’s dedicated home and lifestyle sub-brand in India.

Pleased to announce the introduction of the mijia by Xiaomi sub-brand in India.

It will be our lifestyle and home sub-brand that will sit alongside Xiaomi, REDMI and POCO.

In H1, we have focused on the Human side of our ecosystem, we're prepping to go deeper on the Home side. pic.twitter.com/JmgQvxwtlC

— Sandeep Sarma (@sandeep9sarma) August 7, 2026

This new sub-brand will be under the Xiaomi group that already includes Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO brands. Mijia translates to “Mi Home” and will represent Xiaomi’s smart home ecosystem, while it will also align with the company’s Human x Car x Home strategy that was unveiled globally in 2023.

With Mijia by Xiaomi, the company will be expanding into new categories such as large appliances in India. Alongside new categories, Xiaomi also plans to expand its existing home product lineup with the new sub-brand. It is said that moving forward, Xiaomi’s future home and lifestyle products will be introduced as Mijia by Xiaomi devices.

Reportedly, the first product to launch under Mijia will be a new range of smart air purifiers. Since the sub-brand has been officially introduced, the company is expected to soon start teasing the launch of Mijia’s upcoming product in India.

The post Xiaomi introduces a new sub-brand, Mijia by Xiaomi, in India; New home and lifestyle products will be launched under this brand appeared first on The Tech Outlook.