Five mobile phone companies have committed to start manufacturing facilities in India for handsets / tablets with an approximate investment of $250 million.

 

 

 

 

 

These companies are from countries such as China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and India. They are current evaluating the options to setting up manufacturing facilities in India.

 

 

 

 

 

Mobile manufacturers from India, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan are also forming an association called Indo-Global Digital Devices Association for the promotion of mobile/tablet/digital devices in India. The association will help in facilitating FDI Investments and strategic-tie-ups in the Indian market. The headquarters of the association will be in India, while it will have a branch office in China.

 

 

 

 

 

Their commitment to invest $250 million is reflecting the growth potential of Indian telecom market. Though these companies have been interacting with us, we can not divulge further details,” said NK Goyal, president, CMAI Association of India.

 

 

 

 

 

The setting up of manufacturing center in India is significant as average prices of tablets have crashedby 23 percent in the last four months in Southeast Asia, according to GfK Asia’s retail tracking.

 

 

 

 

 

Making tablets in India will strategically benefit many equipment vendors as India is a price sensitive market.

 

 

 

 

The average price of a tablet was around $600 in April. It is down by 23 percent when compared to January’s average pricing across the region. The most expensive tablets were found in Indonesia, whereas those being sold in the Philippines reflected the lowest average selling price in April.

 

 

 

 

India can also become a manufacturing hub considering the new initiatives by the telecom ministry under the guidance of Kapil Sibal.

 

 

 

 

Worldwide media tablet shipments into sales channels fell by 28 percent on a sequential basis in the first calendar quarter of 2011 (1Q11) to 7.2 million units worldwide, according to IDC.

 

 

 

 

However, IDC raised its shipment forecast for 2011 to 53.5 million units from a previous projection of 50.4 million units.

 

 

 

 

Currently, India is seeing a price war in tablet space. Beetel, an arm of Bharti Enterprises, announced its tablet for Rs 9,999 competing with Reliance Communications’ Rs 13,000 tablet. It is expected that many mobile operators and handset makers will be announcing their cost effective tablets in India soon.

 

 

 

 

By Baburajan K
[email protected]