Telecommunications & Technology
It is apparent that local smartphone brands gained share from foreign brands in 2012. Although Samsung remained the market share leader throughout the year, local brands, especially Lenovo, made significant progress. At the end of 2012, local brands’ combined market share was 61%, and we expect this to edge up to 66% in 2013, as … Read more
Mobile phones have increasingly become more than a communication device – 40% of the respondents in a survey across urban/ semi-urban and rural areas claim that it is currently their primary means of entertainment. While people are upgrading their phones to smartphones and increasingly using their phones to watch videos, listen to music or take … Read more
One of the key drivers for the Indian data growth story will be the availability of low-cost smartphones. We understand that c18m smartphones were sold last year in India and c25-30m smartphones are expected to be sold this year. There has been significant progress already made, we believe the critical milestone will be when major … Read more
Akash Ambani managed Reliance Jio Infocomm has launched VoLTE service [Mobile Voice] on a unique ecosystem (850 + 1800/2300MHz) along with 4G Mobile Broadband. A very small number of smartphones will currently work on the Jio ecosystem (<5mn), as <3% of the smartphones have VoLTE capability. However, Reliance insiders say that, Jio has a large … Read more
The management of Idea Cellular stated that only ~10% of consumers are on packs of >1GB on 3G / 4G LTE networks in a month / 30 day cycle. Hence the higher allowance for high usage packs will not by itself result in sharp ARMB decline. Idea carries the second highest data traffic in the … Read more
Post Airtel’s 4G launch we expect both Idea and Vodafone to commercially launch 4G in select urban cities, mainly from a branding/creating consumer perception perspective. The top 3 telcos are looking to offer 4G to prevent their subscribers from being poached by Jio, which will launch as a 4G-only telco. In our view, both Vodafone … Read more
In the past two years, big screen phones have been gaining popularity. Due to the bigger size of battery, phablet battery hours usually are longer. According to Apple, iPhone 6+ can last 24 hours’ talk time on 3G vs 14 hours for iPhone 6. This is because iPhone 6+ has a 2,915 mAh capacity battery, … Read more
Reliance Jio Infocomm has lighted its 4G/LTE Network and we gather that the results from Voice over LTE – VoLTE trials are to management’s satisfaction so far. The quality of voice services on VoLTE is apparently superior compared to 2G/3G voice services. Unlike 2G/3G, VoLTE is a data-based voice service where voice packets can be … Read more
4 Years after the Limited 3G Spectrum was auctioned in the 2100MHz band, we’ll take a peek into how we are doing with our competitors in Asia – China and Malaysia on various factors. We are classifying based on the Big 4 Factors that help determine the success of Mobile Data. 3G Network Status India … Read more
Despite growth takeoff, 3G penetration is merely 7-10% of the existing mobile subscriber base in India. One key deterrent to a broad based data adoption has been expensive 3G handsets. With the launch of Android One the USD 100 handset segment has seen more depth. With the availability of low-cost 3G smartphones, existing subscribers are … Read more