Hitech to assemble 4G phones at Kolkata plant

KOLKATA: Homegrown handset maker Hitech Cellphone will locally assemble affordable 4G phones from April at its production facility near Kolkata, a move aimed at tapping into the country’s expanding smartphone market by leveraging the Narenda Modi-led government’s ‘Make in India’ drive.

The company’s managing director Md Gyasuddin said Hitech would “source low-cost LTE chips from Taiwanese 4G chipset supplier MediaTek, which would enable it to price the 4G phones in the Rs 4,000 to 10,000 range”.

Gyasuddin said the company would shortly “approach 4G operators such Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Reliance Jio Infocomm to locally supply cheap 4G handsets in bulk based on operator specifications” from its Kolkata unit.

The local handset vendor recently started assembling plain vanilla feature phones and Android 3G devices at its production facility through its existing technology pact with Chinese OEM, Shenzhen Yiheyuan Tech.

The company has also inducted actor Arjun Kapoor as brand ambassador for its entire line of smartphones, feature phones and mobile accessories. The 3G and 4G smartphones will be imported from its Chinese technology partner in semiknocked down condition.