Though 4G is long way to go mainstream in the country, the market is evolving fast. This time we had two updates to share, from two locked horns competitor on 4G turf : Bharti Airtel & Reliance Industries backed Jio Infocomm.
Airtel announced that they increased their stakes at Qualcomm's Indian 4G venture from 49% to 51%. With this acquisition the four entities of Qualcomm's 4G venture become Airtel's subsidiaries. The financial details was not made public.
Qualcomm took part in 4G auction of India to promote LTE. However in time not only India but also globally LTE becomes the favorite 4G technology. Qualcomm won spectrum in 4 circles, while Airtel won in other 4 circles. Qualcomm will eventually leave the market.
There has been talks that Reliance Jio is working with South Korean electronics major Samsung to bring affordable 4G handsets. But it seems the entire process hits a roadblock on the pricing ground. Reliance wants these phobes at Rs 5000 around, while Samsung is not agreeing on this price. Samsung wants Rs 8500 for each phone with more than 3million orders. Otherwise price will go upto Rs 11000. The negotiation is ongoing and if it fails competitors of Samsung will be relieved. It is heard that Reliance also in talks with Huawei.
It can be noted that Samsung is providing LTE equipments to Jio in Mumbai and Delhi.Reliance is well known for tough bargaining and vendors agree with them due to huge volume sale at one go.
