Smartphone makers to discontinue 4G Handsets starting from Rs. 10,000

Representatives of mobile phone manufacturing companies met top government officials and assured that they would gradually discontinue the production of 4G phones priced Rs. 10,000 and above and will shift to 5G technology.

An official of a smartphone company said that smartphone makers will gradually shift to 5G phones priced on or above Rs. 10,000 category. “India has around 750 million mobile phone users. 100 million subscribers in India have 5G-ready phones, but more than 350 million consumers use phones which are only 3G-4G compatible. We told the ministry that our company will gradually discontinue 3G-4G compatible phones which are priced above Rs. 10,000,” the official added.

Top officials of the Department of Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology held a meeting with the mobile operators and smartphone makers and directed them to tune in their 5G services with 5G smartphones within a three months time frame.

The meeting was attended by top officials of smartphone manufacturing companies, including Apple and Samsung, and telecom operators on issues related to providing smooth access to 5G services. The intervention of the handsets manufacturers and telecom service providers to release software FOTA upgrades for all 5G Handsets was also discussed in the meeting. It was also decided to prioritise the software upgrade for the early adoption of 5G in India.