The Economic Times of India reports that Microsoft is building a pipeline of 4G smartphones to be launched in India around the year-end, and is fairly confident about Windows 10-based devices to bridge the gap in the highly competitive mobile market where it is rapidly losing ground against Chinese rivals such as Xiaomi and Lenovo who have already cornered a major chunk of the fast growing 4G smartphone segment.
Speaking to ET, Ajey Mehta, country manager, Microsoft Mobile Devices said:
We will soon roll out the LTE version of Lumia 640XL. All of our future 4G devices will support all types of 4G services in India.
By 2015-end, the company, which acquired Nokia's handset division last year for $7.2 billion, will also start rolling out the latest Windows 10 operating system for its existing smartphones, which the company reckons would help it grow market share in India.
Microsoft currently has only one dual-band 4G smartphone, Lumia 638. Although, currently seven handsets support 4G (via software update), but these models support only one band of 4G - FDDLTE on 1800 Mhz. Airtel offers service on this band in some circles.
The upcoming phones will support both existing 4G bands — TDD using 2300 Mhz and FDD — which will be used by Airtel and Reliance Jio Infocomm. Vodafone India and Idea Cellular are also expected to launch FDD-LTE 4G services over the next few months.
At present the only new Windows 10 handsets leaked so far has been the high end Cityman and Talkman devices, but who knows Microsoft may be launching some new mid-range devices focused on specific regions like India.
How do you feel about the steps taken by Microsoft India? Is it too late to bring 4G handsets into the market? Do tell us in the comments below.
Source: ET