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As part of a broader plan with Google, an array of smartphones, including those supporting LTE, a standard for highspeed mobile data, will be launched in India as the associated network develops towards the beginning of next year, Mohit Bhushan, vice president and general manager, US corporate marketing for MediaTek, told ET.
“We’re striving to get into the West and get a piece of that action by showing our growth as a premium (chipset) supplier,” Bhushan said. MediaTek is the first chipset supplier that Google tied up with for smartphones on the Android One platform, launched on Monday.
Micromax, Karbonn and Spice each introduced a smartphone with a 4.5-inch screen, dual-sim, 5-mega pixel camera and 1 GB RAM, priced at Rs 6,499, Rs 6,399 and Rs 6,299, respectively, using MediaTek’s quad-core processor. The leading chip supplier for Chinese smartphones, MediaTek aims to penetrate carrierled Western markets and at the same time move ahead of the competition in India, Indonesia and the Philippines with Android One, Google’s major initiative to offer rich smartphone experience on low-cost devices with set hardware and software standards across handset makers.
American and European carriers subsidise smartphones significantly for customers who sign up for one to two year calling and data plans or contracts. Bhushan said the carriers would be able to cut out the cost of the devices completely by adding Android One devices to their portfolio.
According to Strategy Analytics’ data in the first quarter this year, Qualcomm leads with 66% share of the world’s wireless chipset market by revenue, followed by MediaTek with 15% and Spreadtrum Communications with 5%. Google announced Qualcomm as its second chipset partner at the launch on Monday.
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Taiwan-based MediaTek, which is involved in business development with Google, said it shared insights about the Indian smartphone market with the Internet giant for enabling the Android One launch and introduced Google executives to the “right people” in Micromax, Karbonn and Spice, owing to its long-term relationships with the domestic handset vendors.
The company expects prices of 3G devices to fall below $100 (Rs 6,000) as sales of Android One smartphones pick up around Diwali. Micromax, Karbonn and Spice expect to sell lakhs of Android One devices over the next month and sales may collectively be about 1.5 to 2 million by the end of the year.