Samsung held a meeting with India’s telecom sector and expressed interest in participating in the second phase of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom equipment, the Economic Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Samsung has negotiated 4G expansion and 5G supply contracts with Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, and is evaluating the possibility of exporting 4G and 5G equipment from India.
This could be a change in Samsung’s attitude towards making telecom equipment in India. In 2021, Samsung had decided not to apply for PLI for telecom equipment as RealthJo is Samsung’s only customer in India, but RealCon has been developing an in-house end-to-end 5G stack based on OpenRAN, which could reduce its reliance on Samsung.
Meanwhile, local wireless operators such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have huge customer bases in 2G and 3G, and single-RAN BTS (Base Transceiver Station) supporting all 2G, 3G and 4G technologies are cheaper and take up less space. But because Samsung lacks 2G and 3G technology, it is difficult to expand the new business to other operators.
However, the Economic Times reported that Reliance Jio recently said it was open to third-party 5G technology, citing sources as saying that Reliance may award Samsung the 5G gear business. Samsung is also reportedly in talks with Bharti Airtel over a telecom equipment supply contract.
In recent years, mainland Chinese suppliers have been restricted from expanding in India due to geopolitical concerns, leaving Indian wireless operators with few options other than Nokia and Ericsson.
According to the Telecom PLI published in November 2021, multinational companies such as Hon Hai and its rising star subsidiary, Flex, Sanmina SCI India, Nokia, JabiLead and CuCube are eligible for manufacturing and selling telecom and networking equipment in India investments are subsidized.
