Despite the US blacklisting China’s telecommunications giant Huawei from its suppliers list, Asia-Pacific (APAC) countries such as South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand have been showing positive sign for the use of its products. However, Huawei’s future in India, the world’s second largest market after China, remains uncertain, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
Recently, India, which is a very important market for Huawei, has given green signal to the company to participate in the 5G test phase.
Antariksh Raut, Senior Analyst of Telecoms Market Data & Intelligence at GlobalData, explains: “India being world’s second largest market after China, holds strong potential for Machine to Machine/Internet of Things (M2M/IoT) growth. Factors such as growing economy, smartphone penetration, high data consumption, technology adoption among others make India a favorable investment destination for Huawei.”
According to GlobalData Mobile Broadband Forecasts, M2M/IoT subscriptions in India are expected to reach from 9.75 million in 2018 84.4 million by 2024-end, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42%. 5G is expected to exponentially improve data speed and power the IoT.
Raut continues: “The US is applying pressure on India to reject network equipment from Huawei, which is China’s largest tech manufacturer. However, considering India’s trade dependency on Chinese products, India is in very tricky situation. Though, India has allowed Huawei to participate the India Mobile Congress in October 2019 to show 5G use cases and undertake 5G trails, India is yet to announce its decision over the company’s participation in the upcoming full-fledged 5G development.”
However, Huawei is taking very transparent, direct and cooperative approach to engage with the Indian government and has given full commitment to follow all rules and regulations with full compliance. In addition, Huawei is committed to making long-term investments in India, including into local manufacturing.
Raut concludes: “Considering India’s political and trade relations with the US and China, India may allow Huawei products for 5G deployments by strictly restricting its involvement for the development of core 5G networks especially at sensitive places (country’s borders). It will be very interesting to see how Indian government along with network operators and Huawei arrive at the decision, which could turn win-win for everyone involved, without compromising on the national security.”
.jpg){kind=tracking}