SAN DIEGO—Qualcomm Inc. handed Indian device-maker Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd. a royalty-bearing license agreement to make and sell CDMA2000 handsets and modem cards. Qualcomm says HFCL is its first patent licensee among Indian developers.
With a population of more than 1 billion, India has become attractive to foreign mobile-phone vendors. But Dayandhi Maran, India’s communications minister, said that by next year India may no longer need to import handsets as Nokia Corp. already produces 2 million phones each month in the country and Motorola Inc. anticipates production of more than 1.3 million handsets each month beginning in January.
At that rate, imports could halt in the second quarter of next year. That fact may effectively kill off the import business for vendors that do not manufacture in-country.
“There are currently more than 36 million CDMA subscribers in India and the Indian wireless market has grown tenfold in less than five years,” said Mahendra Nahata, chairman of HFCL Group. “As the Indian market continues to grow, we believe there will be an increasing demand for more advanced, affordable CDMA2000 wireless devices and this license agreement from Qualcomm, the leader in CDMA technologies, will be a key factor in enabling us to meet this demand. It will also be an important milestone for HFCL to establish a leadership position with CDMA wireless devices in India, as we believe the production of these devices will open up a significant addressable market opportunity for our company.”
India’s CDMA/GSM split is statistically similar to the global split, with 79 percent of the country’s 100 million subscribers using GSM-based services, leaving 21 percent to the CDMA carriers. As penetration levels rise, though, the nation’s carries are looking to 3G to expand their market opportunities.
However, the country’s 3G situation is on hold until India’s Department of Telecommunications revises its spectrum-allocation policy. The government has been assessing its policy of doling out spectrum based on subscriber numbers, which specifically hurts 3G-ready CDMA operators as they must wait for spectrum before they can launch 3G services. Under the current system, CDMA operators must reach a subscriber-number benchmark before they can hope to gain spectrum. Government officials have vowed to announce changes by the end of the year.
