MediaTek brings Helio chipsets for Indian 4G phone market

MediaTek 4G LTE phone

Wireless chip maker MediaTek today announced its Helio chipsets to strengthen its presence in the Indian 4G LTE smartphone market.

Indian device vendor Micromax will be one of the smartphone makers to utilize Helio X10 chipsets that promise to deliver more performance and efficiency.

Micromax, which recently confirmed the exit of its chairman Sanjay Kapoor, released the latest mid-range 4G LTE phone – Micromax Canvas Fire 4G – running on MediaTek’s MT6735. The Canvas Fire 4G is an extension of Micromax Informatic’s Fire series.

India will have 236 million mobile internet users by 2016 and 314 million by 2017, according to the IAMAI and KPMG report. Both 3G and 4G will boost the mobile Internet boom in India that has around 900 million mobile phone users.

India will have more than 500 million internet users by 2017 from 350 million as of June 2015. The number of 3G subscribers is expected to reach 284 million by end of year 2017 from 82 million by the end of year 2014.

“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,” said Vineet Taneja, CEO of Micromax Informatics.

Micromax CEO says 40 percent of consumers require a premium smartphone specifically to include a full HD resolution screen.

Strategy Analytics predicts India will overtake Japan to become the world’s 3rd largest 4G LTE market by 2017.

“MediaTek is well positioned to play a key role in the emerging Indian 4G LTE smartphone market by enabling affordable LTE handsets with its premium class chipsets such as the MT6735 and Helio X10, building on its 3G success in India,” said Sravan Kundojjala, associate director of Strategy Analytics.

MediaTek will focus on 4G LTE-enabled SoCs, the MT6735 and Helio X10, to compete with chip major Qualcomm in the Indian 4G smartphone market.

Baburajan K
[email protected]