The Hindu Business Line : Himachal Futuristic gets licence from Qualcomm

Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd has become the first Indian company to get a licence from Qualcomm to develop, manufacture and sell CDMA mobile handsets and other devices. While this will make CDMA handsets cheaper in India, this assumes significance in the light of the recent announcement by CDMA operator Reliance Communication to acquire a pan-India licence for offering cellular services based on the GSM technology. Reliance had cited lack of cheaper CDMA handsets as one of the reasons for shifting to GSM.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Mahendra Nahata, Chairman, HFCL, said, "With this we hope to address the concerns of the Indian CDMA operators and make available devices that are competently priced. We plan to roll out the first product for trials by January 2007 and start full-scale manufacturing by April 2007."

HFCL will use its existing facility in Solan and the Hindustan Teleprinter Ltd's factory (bought out by HFCL from the Government) in Chennai for manufacturing four million devices (a combination of mobile handsets and fixed wireless devices) in the first year. HFCL will invest Rs 25-30 crore in the first year. About 30 per cent of the production will be earmarked for exports. HFCL will manufacture devices for CDMA 2000 technology, which is being used by most of the Indian operators. As of now Indian operators areimporting CDMA devices from global majors.

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