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Huawei looks into manufacturing mobile phones in India

| April 12, 2016

The company has been looking into expanding its manufacturing efforts into the country.

A delegation of representatives from Huawei have now met with Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s Telecom Minister, as the company has been thinking of expanding their manufacturing of mobile phones from China into India.

The company is looking for ways to continue its mobile device production with additional advantages.

At the moment, Huawei is looking over certain potential business models for manufacturing the mobile phones in India, while they also consider certain potential tax incentives for making the move. The delegation was led by the CEO in India, Jay Chen. They met with the Telecom Minister in order to discuss the intentions of the company for making their way into India for the purpose of manufacturing. Prasad explained that “We had a very elaborate talk and they have said that till now they have invested $2 billion in India in the last 16 years.”

The company already has a facility in the country and are already selling mobile phones in India.

Mobile Phones ManufacturingPrasad stated that “They have a facility in Sriperumbudur… they are selling one million phones in India… if you are selling one million phones, you better start manufacturing here and they have promised me, they will explore the possibility.” He also pointed out that Huawei is in discussions with Foxconn for the moment, on a contract basis. The minister stated that India welcomed the business.

At the moment, the Indian offices from Huawei are serving forty different mobile networks around the globe. That said, the decision to begin the manufacturing of the mobile devices in India is not yet a done-deal.

When asked about the intentions of the company for manufacturing mobile phones in India, one of the delegation members underscored the fact that it still depends on a number of different factors. Among those factors includes business volumes and Huawei has yet to complete its evaluation of the figures within that category, including various business models, policies and regulations within the country and tax incentives. At the moment, the company manufactures network equipment in India not consumer devices.

NFC technology project will let Singapore public transit users pay via smartphone

| April 11, 2016

At the moment, this tech is still in its pilot phase but the hope is to be able to roll it out in the future.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA), in partnership with EZ-Link and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) have recently brought a trial using NFC technology transit fare to a close and are moving on with a pilot project.

This will allow transit riders to be able to use their smartphones to pay to get from point A to point B.

Compatible mobile devices with NFC technology embedded will be able to use the contactless payment readers on the MRT, LRT and public buses. This type of fare will also be available at any of the over 30,000 EZ-Link acceptance points such as at food and beverage and retail outlets in addition to many taxis. The use of an NFC SIM makes it possible to transform a cell phone into a kind of mobile device-based EZ-Link card. That allows them to use the smartphone in the same way that riders previously used their plastic cards.

The NFC technology based option also allows for additional features regarding their transit use.

NFC Technology - BusFor instance, through the associated app, transit riders can also check their EZ-Link balance, view their transaction history and refill the amount they have in their account for paying their fares.

According to Chew Men Leong, LTA chief exec, “This is a milestone in the use of NFC technology in public transit in Singapore,” adding that, “We have been testing various innovative fare payment systems, and bringing these NFC SIMs and mobile phone models into the public transit ticketing environment to bring greater convenience to commuters through new and convenient ways to pay for travel.”

The trial for the use of this mobile ticketing service initially came to a close in February. That testing involved the use of the service by more than 1,000 users through 15 different NFC enabled mobile devices fitted with the near field communication SIM. All told, they registered more than 30,000 transactions with these devices and the app and a pilot is now starting in order to begin the roll out in the future.