Telecom Lead India: Huawei Devices is planning to launch LTE 4G tablet in India next year.
The earlier plan was to unveil TD-LTE tablets in 2012. Unexpected delay in 4G service launches by Indian telecom operators has prompted the Chinese device maker to postpone the LTE tablet launch to next year.
“We will be bundling the tablet with 4G data offerings from service providers. Currently, we are talking to Bharti Airtel and Reliance Industries,” Victor Shan, president of Huawei Devices India, told TelecomLead.com.
Recently, Huawei and Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel announced the launch of a TD LTE smartphone in India. Airtel customers can now use the ultra-fast 4G smartphone, the Huawei Ascend P1 LTE. This is the first 4G LTE smartphone in the country.
Huawei has LTE products with Ascend P1 LTE and Ascend D LTE in smartphone category and Mediapad 10 LTE in tablet category.
MediaPad 10 LTE, which will be launched in India, will be based on quad core processor.
Huawei Devices is also strengthening its presence in India. “We will give more focus on e-channels in the next couple of years,” said P Sanjeev, director – Terminals Sales, Huawei.
Recently, Wan Biao, chief executive officer of Huawei Device, said Huawei will pay more attention to e-commerce channels. Huawei Technologies plans to build about 4,000 branded counters in China by 2013, in a bid to expand the distribution channels for its smartphones and tablets.
Huawei expects sales of its consumer devices – including mobiles, tablets and data cards – to rise by around a third this year from $6.8 billion last year. The device business is likely to hit sales of $30 billion in five years as the unit matches the flagship telecoms gear business as a revenue driver.
The company aims to ship more than 100 million mobile phones this year, including 60 million smartphones to increase its global market share.
Global smartphone shipments will reach 1.7 billion in 2017, up from 450 million last year – of which around 160 million were sold in emerging markets, according to Ovum.
In a recent media interview, Huawei’s deputy chairman Hu Houkun said the company aimed to be the global No.3 smartphone vendor, with 15 percent market share by 2015, up from around 5 percent currently.
