Alright! It looks like Indians are rolling up their sleeves to beat China in producing the cheapest tablets ever! The latest news on B-S says that Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and DataWind – the company behind Aakash – World’s Current Cheapest Tablet (Just Rs. 3k, baby!) are teaming up to bring world’s cheapest 4G tablet to Indians. The estimated price of this new 4G tablet would be between Rs. 4000 – Rs. 5000 (~$100). If the companies are successful in launching the tablet at ‘that’ price, it would be a quarter of the price of tablets being offered by global electronics giants. We’ve a solid reason to believe that Indians would see 4G in India because Reliance is already getting ready to launch 4G services in India by 2012 by the second quarter.
Canadian DataWind was instrumental in development of the Aakash Tablet which got world’s attention for being the world’s cheapest tablet. The company develops wireless web access products. Mr. Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of DataWind confirmed to the B-S that they are in primary talks with RIL to develop a 4G tablet at a very economical price. He further said that it is possible to fit TD-LTE chipset in the tablet while keeping the costs low. Reliance Industries have denied any comments on this development. There are several speculations on the Internet that Reliance is already prepared to disturb the markets by trying to become the first network operator in India to roll out 4G services and very cheap wireless access devices to connect to 4G networks. Tuli further informed that they’re working with a manufacturing partner located in Hyderabad to develop the devices.
This story is both important and interesting as hell! First of all; if Reliance is successful in launching cheap 4G services in India – it IS definitely disturbing the markets. However it’s important for the company to make sure that they implement the technology correctly. 3G is yet to be fully functional (call drops, poor signal, poor range, hugely varying connection speeds and frequent disconnections, <add to the list) and 4G takes a step ahead. At the same time, having a partner like DataWind that promises tad cheap 4G tablets is actually a very big boost for RIL. We’ve noticed that there’s a huge interest among buyers for the Aakash tablet, despite its quality. With 4G in place – we are sure these tablets will sell like a hot cake.
