India has around 355 million Internet users, second only to China, says a report
Nokia has managed to enter the top-five list in the feature phone market within six months of its comeback
Mittal said he discussed a plethora of issues with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and sought the government's support for faster clearances to streamline the group's investment plans.
WhatsApp's advantage is that it is the first app millions of Indian check first thing in the morning and innumerable times during the day and night.
As 4G internet completes coverage of the entire country, rural markets have become the primary generator of sales.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Wednesday pitched for using the USO Fund to subsidise smartphones for select groups to help penetrate the digital revolution and said India should make the rollout of 5G or the fifth-generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks a national priority. As much as 5 per cent of the licence fee paid by telecom operators goes to the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund, which was set up in April 2002 for achieving universal service objectives by providing access to telephone services in rural and remote areas and creation of infrastructure for mobile services and broadband in these areas. However, according to the CAG, less than half of the funds so collected are transferred for the said purpose.
This season, the nature of the advertising game has changed dramatically with TV and digital rights going to different entities.
As India gets ready to roll out one of the largest vaccine programmes, billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday said his group is working with authorities to provide technology tools and backbone for mass inoculation against COVID-19. Ambani's telecom venture Jio was rolled out four years back, offering free voice calling and dirt-cheap data. Today, Jio is India's largest telecom operator with over 400 million users, each connected to the internet. At a Facebook event, Ambani said the government's digital push kept the country running even during the pandemic and is now helping in the rollout of one of the largest vaccination programmes.
Cut-throat competition, high spectrum costs, and frequent flip-flops in government policies have made it difficult for Vodafone to make money in the country.
'We showcased about 20 use cases in 5G trials in Pune and Gandhinagar and some of them were interesting and innovative.' 'However, which ones will take off and which ones would not be relevant, we don't know yet.'
iPhone will have to break Android's domination to make India the next China for Apple
RJio's LYF, Videocon and other smartphone makers to also get notices
This smartwatch is to Android what the Apple Watch is to the iPhone, says Khalid Anzar.
With 8.5 per cent market share in the quarter ended September 2017, Nokia makes it to the top four bestselling feature phones in India.
In effect, companies which put their money in telecom in India would have done much better to keep the cash in bank and earn interest.
Flipkart Group on Monday said it has raised $3.6 billion (about Rs 26,805.6 crore) in funding led by GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Walmart, valuing the e-commerce giant at $37.6 billion. The company, which competes with Amazon, Reliance Industries' JioMart and others in the burgeoning Indian e-commerce market, said it will continue to make deeper investments across people, technology, supply chain and infrastructure to address the requirements of a rapidly growing consumer base in the country. The current funding round has also seen participation from sovereign funds DisruptAD, Qatar Investment Authority, Khazanah Nasional Berhad as well as marquee investors Tencent, Willoughby Capital, Antara Capital, Franklin Templeton and Tiger Global.
When on October 24, the Supreme Court, on a petition moved by the government, ordered payment of past dues according to its new definition of AGR, the country's second-biggest carrier Vodafone-Idea Ltd warned of shut down if no relief is given. The total dues for the industry ran into a whopping Rs 1.47 lakh crore. For an industry that has come from 7-8 operators to just three private players and state-owned fourth operator, the warning by Vodafone-Idea sounded like a death knell.
A year after Bharti Airtel launched 4G services, there are only 6.5 mn users in the country
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday hinted at rolling out 5G telecom services in the second half of 2021 and said policy steps are needed to accelerate the early rollout of ultra-high-speed 5G services that are affordable and available everywhere. Ambani, whose four-year-old telecom venture Jio has captured the No.1 spot offering free voice calling and data at dirt-cheap rates, also pitched for developing hardware manufacturing in India, saying the nation cannot rely on imports in such a critical area. 5G is the 5th generation mobile network that enables connecting virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices. India, he said, is today among the best digitally connected nations in the world.
After a two year run-in with controversies, telecom sector now looks stable and seems back on its feet with initial investment proposal of over Rs 11,000 crore (Rs 110 billion) received in 2013.
With the new entity coming in force, Bharti Airtel will lose the tag of India's biggest telecom service provider to the new entity.
Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal on Thursday said he had reached out to Vodafone's Nick Read after bold telecom reforms were announced by the government and will also speak to RIL's Mukesh Ambani, as the telecom czar vowed to take the lead in bringing the industry together to unleash India's telecom dream. Mittal exhorted the industry to collaborate in areas such as infrastructure sharing to reduce costs but vehemently ruled out possibility of any cartelisation among players. Amid reports of its potential tie-ups with handset makers to counter Jio's upcoming ultra low-cost smartphone, Mittal said Airtel is in a state of "readiness" on an affordable smartphone "should a need arise".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to urge Tim Cook to begin manufacturing its prized iPhones in India.
Analysts remain confident RIL's refining and petrochemical segment will continue to support growth.
The IPO is expected to bring handsome fees for the selected banks at a time when billion-dollar listings have become scarce
iPhone sales in India were up by 56 per cent during the period.
The auction will help operators augment expansion of high-speed 4G voice and data services in the world's second largest mobile phone market.
A Vodafone Group insider with more than 25 years in the telco across geographies, he's like the eyes and ears of the multinational in India.
Can we make high speed 4G Internet available at 10 cents per GB, and make all voice calls free of cost -- that too in a large and diverse country like India? Can we make high-quality but simple breast cancer screening available to every woman, that too at the extremely affordable cost of $1 per scan? Can we make a portable, high-tech ECG machine which can provide reports immediately and that too at the cost of 8 cents a test? Can we make an eye imaging device that is portable, non-invasive and costs 3 times less that conventional devices? Can we make a robust test for mosquito-borne dengue, which can detect the disease on day 1, and that too at the cost of $2 per test? Amazingly, says Dr R A Mashelkar, the eminent scientist, all this has been achieved in India, not only by using technological innovation but also non-technological innovation.
Unlike other SM sensations, 'Khan Sir' became a star with well-researched news-related videos, not 30-second inanities. Syed Firdaus Ashraf tracks down the elusive coach to IAS aspirants.
The race to get a New Umbrella Entity (NUE) licence for digital payments may get crowded. As many as six consortiums are said to be in the fray to apply for an NUE licence, which would create a for-profit National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)-like body for retail payments. A consortium led by Financial Software and Systems (FSS), a leading provider of payment products and payment processor, is in talks and may file an application to the RBI for an NUE license, said sources aware of the development. The other constituents of this group include Indian Bank, Central Bank of India, India Post Payments Bank, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), and a few small finance banks.
Trai's move is seen as a relief for the debt ridden sector and the industry body COAI expects that continuing with six paise mobile call termination charge will not have any impact on consumers as operators have already absorbed this charge in their recently increased mobile call and data rates.
With a string of deals with telecom service providers, DTH operators and Bollywood stars, Netflix goes all out to protect its turf in India and fend off competition, says Viveat Pinto.
Given the security dilemma prevailing between India and China, India should curb the operation of Chinese telecom companies in India, asserts Dr Rup Narayan Das.
Speaking at a fireside chat with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, he said the big change driving this transformation was the deepening of mobile networks which were working at a much faster pace than before.
Three more positive cases of novel coronavirus have been reported in India.
Theoretically, 4G promises download speeds of up to 100 Mbps, compared with the speed of 21 Mbps that 3G supports.
Fresh capital will help Flipkart further grow its e-commerce marketplace in India as the world's second-largest internet market begins to recover from the COVID-19 crisis.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer, is tripling its sourcing from India to about $10 billion a year by 2027, said Judith McKenna, president, and chief executive officer of Walmart International, the segment which includes the company's operations outside the US. "To achieve this, we are growing our sourcing team in India," said McKenna, during a fireside chat with YourStory founder Shradha Sharma at Converge@Walmart, the flagship event of Walmart Global Tech India. "Walmart has a 20-year history of sourcing from India and already exports more than $3 billion worth of Made-in-India goods each year to 14 markets worldwide." McKenna said the company has expertise in processes such as international standards and demand forecasting that businesses need to get ready to export.
The once-popular brand plans to try its luck in the smartphone market with reliability as its key proposition.
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