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Reliance Industries Is Said To Have Partnered With Samsung To Deploy 4G Services In The Country
Okay, this is big! Close on the heels of Airtel and Videocon announcing 4G services in certain parts of the country, Reliance Industries, run by Mukesh Ambani, seems to have pulled off a big deal with Korean major, Samsung. The partnership deal seems to be confirmed but details are scarce for the moment except for the fact that Samsung will be providing its LTE platform and services to Reliance so that the latter can deploy 4G across the country.
The partnership is a much deeper affair compared to previous partnerships by Reliance. Samsung will also be offering entry level 4G phones for around Rs.5500 ($100), which is super surprising! High end phones will also be promoted by arranging some easy and affordable EMI options. Although you can’t expect these $100 phones to be the best at that price point, you can be damn sure that it will put the country’s mobile Internet usage on steroids due to the cheap price point and ‘affordable‘ pricing for the 4G service. 4G is an expensive service as demonstrated by Airtel when it launched it for the first time in the country in Kolkata. There is thus a noticeable discrepancy between the cost of the entry level 4G enabled phones being offered and the cost of the service at present. Does this mean that Reliance will be making its 4G service affordable? How will it be maintaining its profitability if it does that? These questions can be speculated upon but we will have to wait till the service is launched and that will happen somewhere in mid-2013. According to the source, the service will be launched in Mumbai and Delhi first. There is no official announcement from both the companies.
This is what a Reliance insider had to say regarding negotiations with the Korean giant,
“We went to the Korean giants before the Reliance Infocomm launch to manufacture handsets at $100, a price never heard of then in early 2000. They didn’t entertain us then. We came back to our drawing boards, did an in-house research and went back to them showing how handsets can be manufactured within $100 and told them if they don’t manufacture handsets for us at that price, we will do it on our own. In the process, they will miss out on a billion-dollar opportunity. That’s when they gave in.”
Once this gets implemented, be ready to see a huge upheaval in the Indian mobile business as other operators and manufacturers will also be forging relationships to compete with this supposed JV between Reliance and Samsung. This will make the atmosphere even more competitive and finally boost mobile internet usage, which in turn will be awesome for mobile startups and services in the space.
What are your thoughts on this development? Share your views with us.
Story Source | The Times Of India
Image Source | Shutterstock
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2013-03-06 23:47:54
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