The deal will result in four to five smartphones by the end of 2015 and that will increase the market share for MediaTek from existing 35-40 percent to more. India has a strong market for featured phones and smartphone.
Micromax is the second the largest smartphone brand in India with a quarter of the market by volume for sub $125 dollar phones which are very popular. Snapdragon is strong in India.
MediaTek is hiring in India. The plan is to double the head count to reach 700 in Delhi and Bangalore R&D offices, by the end of 2016.
Two network providers AirTel and Reliance Jio will roll out high-speed 4G networks over the coming year to stimulate growth of the market. Indian represents the biggest smart phone opportunity in the world when it comes to volume. We are talking about 1.3 billion people but only some 20 percent or 270 million can be considered to be a middle class and that can afford a smartphone.
More than five billion people on planet will reach a middle class status, which means that they should be able to afford a TV and some kind of compute device such as phablets or phone. Since Asia represents 66 percent of this grown people expects that India might get as much as billion people to a middle class by 2020. These numbers might be optimistic but it is a huge opportunity for smartphone companies.
Micromax and MediaTek will offer 3G and 4G chipsets including phones based on two of several MediaTek 4G LTE-enabled SoCs, the MT6735 and Helio X10. With these chipsets MediaTek and Micromax can attack the market and offer some good mainstream phones.
At Computex Fudzilla talked with the MediaTek’s CFO David KU who mentioned that China and India are the two markets that company wants to pursue.
Mr. Vineet Taneja, CEO, Micromax Informatics said
“India is at the cusp of digital revolution and at Micromax Informatics we have been putting in concerted efforts to bring the best in class 4G LTE smartphones to take Internet usage to an unprecedented level. Today’s partnership exemplifies the same endeavor and we are delighted to partner with MediaTek for its Helio Family. We have always endeavored to offer products based on certain needs of the consumer. Moving forward, we will lead the 4G adoption in the country by converting all our popular value Canvas series to 4G. Canvas Fire 4G is the first in a series of such launches.”
