Reliance Jio & Airtel’s push to boost demand for 4G phones: MediaTek

Of its total chipset shipments, more than 10% will be to India, which is the company’s secondlargest market after China.

By Danish Khan, ET Bureau | Updated: Jun 16, 2015, 03.45 AM IST

NEW DELHI: Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek expects demand for smartphones that support LTE fourth-generation technology to rise significantly in India in 2015-2016 on the back of mass rollouts of 4G services by Reliance Jio Infocomm and Bharti Airtel. It expects 10% of the 40 million chipsets it projects to ship to India to be LTE-enabled.

"We have set ourselves up for LTE this year. The next financial year (starting April 2016) will be significantly big for us in the LTE segment," Finbarr Moynihan, general manager, corporate sales-international, told ET.

Of its total chipset shipments, more than 10% will be to India, which is the company’s secondlargest market after China. Globally, MediaTek is aiming to ship around 450 million chipsets with 150 mn being LTE chipsets. Last year, it shipped 350 mn chipsets and 40 mn were LTE-enabled.

The $100-smartphone (Rs 6,400) category is expected to drive the growth for 4G smartphones in India.

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