Prime Minister Manmohan Singh – speaking at India Telecom 2013 — emphasized on the need for domestic telecom and electronics equipment manufacturing base to reduce import bills.
By 2020 India will import $300 billion worth of electronic products. “We need to act now to prevent a situation in which a large face difficulties in financing imports,” said PM.
He has also emphasized that the National Telecom Policy 2012 announced last year brought out transparency in the mobile industry.
“We simplify licensing procedures and ensuring adequate availability of spectrum for the provision of telecommunications services and transparently allocated through market-related processes have been attempted,” he added.
The other achievements of the UPA government include new M&A guidelines, new round of spectrum auction, increase in FDI to 100 percent, etc.
India Telecom 2013, which did not attract several key telecom equipment vendors such as Ericsson, NSN, Alcatel-Lucent, ZTE, Cisco, etc. as sponsors, became a good platform for Indian handset makers to showcase their products.
Some of the participants at India Telecom 2013 include Huawei, BSNL, MTNL, C-DoT, Bharti Airtel, NEC, etc.
Union telecom minister Kapil Sibal and state telecom ministers Milind Deora and Kruparani Killi launched the MX100 Leader, a handset by Maxx Mobile designed to cater to the rural Indian markets.
Priced at Rs 1,932, the feature phone comes with 4400 mAh battery and LED torch, said Ajjay Agarwal, CMD and founder, Maxx Mobile.
Kapil Sibal also launched Karbonn Titanium X smartphone.
Karbonn Titanium X features 1.5 GHz Quad-Core processor, 1GB RAM plus 16GB internal memory, 2300 mAh battery, 13 MP rear camera with dual flash along with a 5 MP front camera with Flashand runs on Google’s Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OS.
Shashin Devsare, executive director, Karbonn Mobiles said the Karbonn Titanium X enables the Generation X to live life in the fast lane and discover more into their social interactions.”
Lava International showcased its smartphones – Iris 503, a sub 10k smartphone designed by the in-house R&D team at Lava and 3G 402, an entry level 3G android smartphone at the India Telecom 2013.
Hari Om Rai, chairman & managing director, Lava International, said that Iris 503 is available for Rs 9,999, while 3G 402 is priced at Rs 5499.