A year ago, Qualcomm and Reliance talks over CDMA royalty issues were deadlocked. Qualcomm didn’t budge despite repeated pleas from then IT Minister, Dayanidhi Maran.
Immediately, Anil Ambani announced massive GSM expansion and applied for PAN India licenses which he also secured after few months. Meanwhile, Hucth’s stake in Hutchison-Essar was for sale and Anil Ambani backed by Private Equity funds bid for the same which he ultimately lost to Vodafone.
Just last month we had an exclusive report on how issues like spectrum allocation ruled by the GSM lobby can derail Anil Ambani’s PAN India GSM rollout. From today’s development we do think their is a strategic shift in RCom’s plan to fight Bharti Airtel which is growing faster than the Indian Mobile industry and Vodafone-Hutch-Essar which has announced massive investments in network expansion and is also bringing specially designed low cost handset to India.
Give some-Take some and seal the deal is what seems to have happened between Reliance and Qualcomm. Handset issues are addressed and Reliance will start manufacturing handsets in India. The much awaited telecom battle has just begun which will lead towards consolidation. Stay tuned.
Tags: Mobile India, Qualcomm, Reliance, CDMA GSM
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