Qualcomm ready to aid Indian CDMA handset makers

NEW DELHI: San Diego-based wireless technology giant Qualcomm Inc is willing

to support companies that want to manufacture mobile handsets based on its CDMA

standard in India, its chief said on Friday.

Qualcomm's Chairman and Chief Executive, Irwin Jacobs, who is visiting India

after a trip to China, told reporters in New Delhi he hoped the huge potential

in India would spur companies to set up facilities to make these handsets.

"Qualcomm agrees to licence anyone who wishes to be a manufacturer...We

expect people to see the large growing market here in India and then become

manufacturers," said Jacobs, who is regarded as the pioneer of CDMA or Code

Division Multiple Access technology.

It announced on Thursday it would invest up to $200 million for a four per

cent stake in Indian fixed-line telephone service firm, Reliance Communications

Ltd., but Jacobs said it did not plan more investments in the country now.

Qualcomm is targeting India in its drive to make its CDMA technology the

dominant mobile phone standard in the world.

For a nation of more than a billion people, India has less than four

telephones per hundred people, prompting analysts to put it in the league one of

the hottest telecom markets in the world.

"The government here is beginning to look to see the teledensity moving

up to five percent and then to 10 percent. That's a very large potential

market...We're very excited about it," Jacobs said.

Technology research firm Gartner last year forecast India's cellular market

to grow at a compounded annual rate of 52.5 percent through 2005, double that of

China's 26 percent.

Indian partner



Qualcomm has found its partner in India's Reliance group, the largest and
fastest growing private conglomerate with a dominating presence in the

petrochemicals and refining businesses.

Reliance Communications, an unlisted company of the group, last July won

government licenses to operate fixed-line services in 16 Indian states covering

over 90 percent of the population, where it plans to aggressively deploy

Qualcomm's CDMA technology.

The Indian government has allowed fixed-line firms to use the CDMA wireless

in local loop technology to offer a cheap, limited area mobile service in a bid

to usher in a telephone revolution in the country.

The technology is expected to help firms roll-out networks faster by

eliminating the need to connect households using cable.

(C) Reuters Limited.