Qualcomm looks at India 4G growth to replicate China story

It is especially bullish on Reliance Jio

American chipmaker Qualcomm says that it is eyeing a big opportunity in India with the growth of 4G powered by Reliance Jio that is driving up sales of its processors. The company says it sees India where China was a few years ago, and it expects an accelerated move towards 4G enabled smartphones from feature phones.

"There has been a very large-scale LTE launch with Reliance that is moving the market towards... smartphone with 4G and technology such as Voice-over-LTE. All of the concepts that has been successful in China can also be a driver in India," said Cristiano Amon, Executive Vice President at Qualcomm, in a call with analysts on Wednesday.

India has become the fastest growing large smartphone market in the world as sales of devices in markets such as US and China begin to fall. This growth has put the country on the map for several large smartphone makers such as Apple, Google, Lenovo and Xiaomi.

According to Counterpoint Research, around 115 million smartphones were sold in the country in the 12 months that ended September. While in developed markets the iPhone, which uses Apple's proprietary chip, makes up a significant chunk of sales, in India 94 per cent of devices run on Android.

In the September quarter, sales of 4G devices in the country touched 10 million devices, with every one in three smartphones sold in the country being 4G enabled. Majority of this growth is being driven by sub-$100 devices which is being disrupted by Chinese players such as Xiaomi and Lenovo.

"The demand for smartphones is being fueled by growing importance of being uber-connected which is further catalysed by rollout of LTE networks," said Karn Chauhan, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research, in a statement.

Reliance Jio plans to onboard 100 million customers onto its network and is offering free voice calls as an incentive for them to move from competing networks to its own. The firm has spent close to $17 billion in setting up its 4G network in India and boasts of the largest 4G coverage across the country. Its larger rival Bharti Airtel also has a robust 4G network infrastructure to compete.