India first with phones using a single Qualcomm chip

An Indian mobile phone operator is the first to deploy mobile phones based on a single-chip CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) platform from Qualcomm Inc. The operator, Tata Teleservices Ltd., is offering Motorola Inc.’s Motofone F3c for 1,699 Indian rupees (US$38).

Tata Teleservices is a large Indian mobile service provider with over 15 million customers. The roll-out by Tata Teleservices in India will be followed by roll-outs in other emerging markets, Kanwalinder Singh, president of Qualcomm India told reporters in Bangalore on Thursday.

The Qualcomm Single Chip (QSC) platform integrates the radio transceiver, baseband functions and power management into a single chip, Singh said. By reducing the number of discrete components required and the circuit board area they occupy, manufacturers can offer smaller and sleeker designs at lower cost, he added.

The new mobile phones, which are designed to be rugged and offer a battery life of eight days, will be targeted primarily at rural users, said Darryl Green, CEO of Tata Teleservices. “We are not targeting this phone at the trendy or business users, but first time users such as rural users,” he added. The company expects to sell over 3 million of the handsets in the first year.

Motorola is the first mobile handset maker shipping a phone built around Qualcomm’s QSC, according to Singh. Ten manufacturers have signed up with Qualcomm to make mobile devices using the QSC chipset, he added.

India is adding over 6 million mobile users each month, and a number of service providers are targeting new, price-sensitive markets such as rural users. An Indian government program subsidizes service provision to under-served rural areas.