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 `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 `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 `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 `10,000 to customers throughout the year across all Samsung products and it will be over and above the offers available at that

time.