'There is no doubt at all that Jio's disruption of the mobile broadband market was a turning point for India's digital economy.'
In 2020 a round of hikes in customs duty on components like compressors, motors and printed circuit boards aggravated the situation, coronavirus crisis is now leaving manufacturers with no option but to hike prices despite fall in sales.
Overall mobile phone production was about 68 million in 2014, increased to 100 million in 2015 and 350-400 million in July 2016.
A 15 per cent corporate tax rate for services companies in SEZs, setting up a fund for deep-tech startups and establishing clusters to demonstrate design-to-manufacturing capabilities of tech firms were some of the key demands made by the IT sector at the pre-Budget consultation on Monday. The participants shared their views and suggestions regarding Big Data, incentives for encouraging setting up of data centres, fiscal incentives for data localisation, incentives for pushing digital penetration in rural areas, and corporate guarantee to startups for competing with other nations.
Several factors have held India back. One is DoT policy somersaults and lack of clarity on whether to or not to ban Chinese gear makers.
This will be the first time BJP's prime ministerial candidate holds a discussion with IT, telecom czars.
For re-verification through Aadhaar-based eKYC process, the operator will send a verification code to the mobile number of the subscriber.
While moving towards the new technology is compelling and inevitable, powering 5G would also mean massive initial investments for telcos, says Surajeet Das Gupta.
Nokia's Chennai plant is under freeze over tax dispute.
A truly 'made in India' satellite that will empower a digital India.
Nokia may be allowed to sell Chennai mobile plant.
Come July, mobile phone prices are expected to be dearer by up to 10 per cent due to the steep depreciation in the value of rupee against dollar.
Departments of electronics, excise, I-T launch probe into Rs 251 smartphones
In its letter Voda Idea has warned that it is not in a sound financial state, and added that it would be in a position to meet its liabilities only if the government initiates steps including allowing set-offs for GST credit accumulated so far, and permitting staggered mechanism for payment of balance amount of interest, penalty, and interest on penalty.
The Swadeshi Jagaran Manch has pointed out that these firms pose a threat to domestic manufacturing and retailing as they do not pay relevant taxes such as GST, giving them a huge edge over local players.
Telecom companies have been desperately waiting for a bailout package from the government after a Supreme Court order put their statutory liabilities at Rs 1.47 lakh crore.
They are cheaper to build, costing around Rs 10 lakh each as against Rs 20-25 lakh for a traditional ground-based tower and even less than the Rs 12-15 lakh needed for a tower mounted on a roof top.
Its pre-consultation paper has been silent on the issue of closed electronic communication network, a loophole telcos can exploit to offer discriminatory pricing.
There are unprecedented political implications of identification based on 'biological attributes of an individual', such as employed by Aadhaar, warns Gopal Krishna.
Components manufactured in India are low-value products like casing and box packaging that constitute 5% of the bill for materials required in phone manufacturing.
Telecom Secretary J S Deepak has resolved the toughest issues facing the sector, but his real test will be in delivering on the govt's Digital India dream
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