Reliance Jio driving India’s 4G growth rate: Rohm

NEW DELHI: Japanese semiconductor company Rohm has said Reliance Jio Infocomm is driving India’s 4G growth rate, which is the fastest in the world. The automotive solutions company will unveil India-focused solutions for a digitally-driven Smart Nation in August, aiming for its smartphone portfolio to contribute at least 20% in India by 2020.

“Globally, 4G has already started quite early, but India has the fastest growth rate now due to service providers like Jio, which are driving usage by people towards 4G through some freebies,” said Daisuke Nakamura, managing director, Rohm Semiconductor India.

Launched in September 2016, Jio has added more than 100 million subscribers to its IP-based pan-India network in a span of two quarters.

Nakamura said that with broadband in India being limited to cities and not spreading as fast as anticipated, 4G is the best bet for non-urban areas, where the 2G and 3G infrastructure needs only be upgraded.

“The whole country can be digitally connected by using 4G, which is the India mission for a Smart Nation,” he said, adding that Rohm plans to showcase its wireless portfolio for traffic control, pollution monitoring and street lights in August.

Rohm also offers digital power solutions to mobile base stations, with Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei as its major customers. With the smartphone segment growing rapidly in tandem with 4G, it plans to increase its mobile play. The company works for design centres of top tier-1 mobile phone makers, including Chinese brands such as Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo.