Samsung to Step Up Investments in India's 4G Market

Korean technology major Samsung has committed to scale up its investments in India's 4G market in a meeting with Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, while LG expressed great faith in the "changed investment climate".

"Met CEO Samsung. Discussed NOFN and Smart city projects. They are keen on India's 4G mobile market. (They) want to increase investment," Prasad tweeted after his meeting.

Major Indian telecom operators, including Reliance Jio, plan to start 4G services from next year. Bharti Airtel and Aircel have already launched these high-speed services in some parts of the country.

Prasad is on a 5-day visit to South Korea to woo investments in the country in the field of electronics manufacturing and under the 'Make In India' program.

The Telecom Ministry in a statement on Prasad's visit said that Samsung IT and Mobile Communications President and CEO Jong Kyun Shin in the meeting with the Minister "expressed great hope in the India's 4G mobile market and expressed his desire to make big investments in India".

The Samsung CEO appreciated Indian engineers in making Samsung a big success across the world.

Samsung has one its biggest R&D centres in India. It also has electronics manufacturing units that manufacture products like mobile phones and TV sets.

Government has set a target to have net zero import of electronics by 2020.

As per official estimates, Indian electronics market will be around $400 billion (about Rs. 24 lakh crore) by 2020 and in the absence of corrective measures to boost electronics manufacturing, those imports would be around $300 billion (about Rs. 18 lakh crore) by the same year.

The minister also talked about National Optical Fiber Network programme - which aims to connect all 2.5 lakh village panchayat by 2017 - and the Smart City plan.

Government has plan to develop 100 smart cities, as satellite towns of larger cities and by modernizing the existing mid-sized cities.

(Also See: Reliance Jio Finalises Vendors, Partners for 4G Services Launch)

The telecom minister will also attend the Plenipotentiary Conference 2014 of the International Telecom Union - an arm of United Nations which decides on global telecom rules and standards.

The Minister met LG Electronics Vice Chairman and CEO Bon Joon Koo who "expressed great faith in the changed investment climate in India".

"The Minister desired LG Electronics to make India its global manufacturing hub," the statement said.

Prasad also met LG Chemical President Young Soo Kwon and shared the vision of Indian government for promoting solar power as a clean source of energy and appealed for its investment in the country.