Samsung, the South Korean technology giant, helped India’s number one telecom operator, Reliance Jio, with its 4G deployment across the country. Now, both the companies might work together for the 5G rollout as well. Jio and Samsung have also worked together during the 5G trials of the former, which started back in June 2021.
Now, according to a BusinessStandard report, Jio is in advanced talks with the South Korean tech giant for making the latter its third technology partner for rolling out 5G in India.
Samsung Considering Setting Up Manufacturing Facility in India
Samsung has communicated with the Indian government that it is interested in being a part of the production linked scheme (PLI) 2.0 for the telecom sector. Samsung might partner with Airtel as well, and having two big customers, including Jio and Airtel, would be very beneficial for the company in the long run. Thus, setting up manufacturing facilities for telecom gear could be a profitable business for Samsung.
Even the telecom operators wouldn’t want a duopoly scenario to arise with Nokia and Ericsson since Huawei is not on the trusted vendors' list in India. Samsung would be looking to export manufacturing gear as well.
Earlier Samsung had said no to becoming a part of the PLI scheme for the telecom sector. This was due to the reason that it only had one company in the name of Jio as its customer. For Jio only, Samsung could have fulfilled the orders by importing from outside.
But now, if Samsung gets to work with Jio for 5G on a large scale and then also get a contract from Airtel, it would be in the company’s interest to produce locally and enjoy the benefits of the PLI scheme for the telecom sector.
All the private telecom operators are waiting for the spectrum auctions to take place. Once it does, the telcos will be able to launch commercial 5G services in a matter of a few months.
