Chinese handset maker and the title sponsor of Indian Premier League (IPL), Vivo India has today unveiled Aamir Khan as the new face of their brand. Reportedly, the brand will be seen aggressively promoting the association with the actor through a high-budget marketing campaign. Khan will be replacing Ranveer Singh, who will end his association with Vivo, after a 20 months stint.

Vivo came into the picture in 2016, after PepsiCo's sudden withdrawal of their 5-year contract. In 2016, Vivo Mobiles became the title sponsor of IPL for Rs 200 crore over a 2 year period. Vivo  India has retained the IPL title rights till 2022. It has acquired the rights for Rs 2,199 crore, which translates to roughly Rs 440 crores per year being added to the BCCI coffers

Over the years, Aamir Khan has endorsed iconic brands like Coca Cola, Pepsi, Godrej, Tata Sky, Snapdeal, Star Plus, Titan, Samsung, Incredible India and others. The actor was also in the midst of severe controversy, following his statement on 'rising intolerance in India'. Snapdeal decided to distance itself from the actor by not renewing their contract.  In the beginning of 2017, Tourism Ministry also reportedly dropped Khan as the ambassador for Incredible India, as a result of the negative image around the actor at that point of time.  As per reports, the actor charges between Rs 3-3.5 crore for an endorsement deal.

The brand has recently announced that their new phone Vivo V9 will be launched at an event on March 23 in India. As per reports, the phone is said to get features like a 24-megapixel wide-angle selfie camera, Face Unlock, fast charging support, and fingerprint sensor. The handset is reported to run FunTouch 4.0 OS on top of Android 8.0 Oreo.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 19, 2018 01:28 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).