Jul. 29, 2010 (The Hindu Business Line) --
Our Bureau
New Delhi, July 29
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. on Thursday announced its entry into the Indian handset market with the launch of 20 new models. Huawei till now was selling its handsets in India only through operators.
The devices have been launched utilising Qualcomm's (NASDAQ:QCOM) advanced chipset solutions and will be made directly available to consumers from August 1. The base model starts at Rs 2,000.
Mr Victor Xu, Chief Marketing Officer, Huawei Device, said, “With the Indian telecom industry growing at the rate of 20 million subscribers a month, and poised to reach 1 billion by 2015, Huawei sees traction in the telecom device segment.” Mr Kanwalinder Singh, President of Qualcomm India and South Asia and Senior Vice-President of Qualcomm, said, “Qualcomm welcomes Huawei's entry into the open market in India, with the launch of a compelling range of handsets and smart phones based on 3G and CDMA/EVDO technologies. We believe millions of Indians will soon have their first mobile Internet experience on such devices .”
Huawei said it witnessed a remarkable growth and products acceptance with over 5 million devices shipped to India in 2009. Huawei has delivered over 25 million devices till date, with handsets contributing 60 per cent. A number of new brands have been launched in the Indian market currently dominated by Nokia (NYSE:NOK) which has over 50-per cent market share.
