Telecom equipment demand to exceed $30 bn by 2020: Sinha

The demand for telecom equipment, including mobile phones, would exceed $30 billion in India by 2020 from $20 billion in 2015-16, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said on Monday.

The country is the fastest growing telecom market in the world and has the second largest subscriber base, Sinha said while inaugurating the 8th Telecom Export Promotion Council's Buyer-Seller meet here.

The minister said the government would do everything to ensure that Indian telecom products and services become the first choice for everybody's telecom needs.

He said if anybody was looking for secure information, communication, technology (ICT) products, they should rely on Indian products and the industry was eager to share the "know-how" and the "know why". "Indian manufacturers have already made significant strides in exports of IT and telecom products to several countries and established that Indian IT and telecom products are of world-class quality and globally competitive on technology and price," Sinha said.

India has all the ingredients of a globally competitive telecom industry such as large domestic market, world-class talent, focus on research and development and intellectual property rights creation, beside a robust framework for electronic manufacturing.

Sinha, who was addressing representatives from 28 participating countries from South Asia, South-East Asia, Caribbean, Latin America and Africa, said India has the distinction of being the fastest growing telecom network, especially with the advent of increased broadband penetration. "This large telecom network requires equipment and technology that is second to none in the world, yet India offers the lowest telephony tariffs in the world," he said. The minister said with this background, the foreign delegates can be assured that when they buy telecom products and services from India, they would be buying the best technology at competitive costs.

Speaking during the occasion, Telecom Secretary J S Deepak said Indian companies have exported more than $110 billion of ICT products mostly to advanced countries, which is likely to witness a big spurt in the near future.