14 DAY TRIAL // Mobile chip maker MediaTek is set to bring 4G-capable chipsets to the smartphone market in India starting with the next year, and has already partnered with vendors in the country for the launch of smartphones to feature them.
4G services are already available in the country; yet, there are few options when it comes to affordable handsets to offer support for them.
The availability of 4G devices with MediaTek’s CPUs inside, however, should change that, providing more users with the possibility to take advantage of the faster connectivity capabilities that the 4G technology can deliver.
“We expect that the next year will be critical for us. India is an exciting 4G market,” Finbarr Moynihan, general manager, International Sales and Marketing at MediaTek, told Light Reading India.
“We are working with various handset manufacturers in the country and you will see our partners launching quality 4G devices at competitive prices in 2014.”
Furthermore, MediaTek said that it would continue to focus on offering products in emerging markets, claiming that users need a variety of chipsets to choose from, at different price points.
At the same time, Moynihan reportedly confirmed that the company would continue to work with vendors such as Intex, Micromax, Spice and Lava for the release of multiple new devices to the India market.
In fact, mobile phone makers in this country are also expected to adopt the latest octa-core mobile system-on-chip from MediaTek, namely the MT6592, which was made official last week.
Until now, only one handset vendor in India has announced plans for the launch of a phone powered by the MT6592 CPU, namely Intex. However, it appears that others will follow suit, and that more devices will be announced in the next several weeks.
At the moment, MediaTek is the third largest mobile chip maker in the world, with over 110 million chipsets shipped worldwide in 2012. The company suggests that its partners will ship over 200 million handsets with MediaTek CPUs during 2013.