The Hindu Business Line : Huawei sees big scope for wireless terminals

Upbeat mood
Business from telecom carriers set for much faster pace of growth.
Is in talks for direct sales with Vodafone and Virgin Atlantic with whom it has long-term global deals.
Expects to launch a wide range of handsets through partners.

V. Rishi Kumar

Shenzen (China) Sept. 27

Telecom solutions provider Huawei Technologies is upbeat on the Indian market for wireless terminals and sees its business from telecom carriers such as Tata Indicom, Reliance Infocomm and Bharti Airtel set for much faster pace of growth.

The company is exploring the option of setting up a manufacturing base for terminals and is also considering the option of direct retail sales.

All these years the focus was on providing direct business-to-business terminal sales as a part of the total telecom solutions model.

The Director of Integrated Marketing Communications, Huawei Technologies, Ms Meddy Lu, told Business Line “The Indian market for wireless terminals, data cards, fixed wireless telephones is poised for rapid expansion necessitating the company to look at the option of a local manufacturing base. Though no decision has been taken on this as yet, we are actively evaluating.”

Indian Opportunities

Of the $11 billion revenues for Huawei, about $1.3 billion comes from its wireless terminals business, including video conferencing products and solutions, and USB modems and convergence home solutions.

The company leverages manufacturing facilities of Flextronics for some of the terminals business products.

After providing an overview of their entire range of Huawei terminals, which get supplied to telecom operators such as Vodafone, Tata Indicom, Reliance Infocomm, at the company’s communications terminals lab, Ms Meddy said that the India market offers opportunities to play a significant role in the areas of wireless products, home gateways and fixed wireless business, including broadband access products.

Ms Meddy said, “The company business model is different from some of the other telecom companies. The approach is to offer them end-to-end telecom solutions, including network and terminals. As and when we get orders from telecom carriers such as Vodafone and the likes of Bharti Airtel, we offer them these products. Therefore, the model is business-to-business approach rather than direct retail sales.”

PRODUCT LAUNCH

“However, we are actively looking at supplying GSM phones for other operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and expect to shortly launch a slew of products in India. The company is also in talks with the likes of Vodafone and Virgin Atlantic with whom we have long-term global deals for direct sales,” she explained.

“The Indian market is a cost-sensitive one and the demand for ULC (ultra low cost) handsets is quite big. However, as a company that has the entire range of products that span ULC, mid range and high end UMTS sets, we expect to roll them out into India through partners,” she said.

“In a couple of months, we expect to launch a new range of handsets in India,” she explained.

Referring to the terminals business, Ms Meddy said, “The company has about 3,600 employees and of them 50 per cent are engaged in R&D.

The company sold 27 million units last year and in the first half has logged sales of over 17 million. In India, the company sold over 3 million units last year logging revenues of about $100 million and in the first half, we have already shipped over 3 million units to India.”

More Stories on : Telecommunications | Outlook

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page