HMD Global Oy, the company which got the license to sell Nokia-branded mobiles , ventured into 5G with Nokia 8.3 back in 2020. The nokia later announced a few other versions including the Nokia 8 V 5G UW and 8.3 5G for Verizon in the United state. Right after the Qualcomm Snapdragon SD690 announcement, it also teased an affordable 5G mobiles. The Company is expected to launch up to four mobiles in 2021. Now, it has revealed to Financial Express report that it is planning to bring the 5G devices to India.
In an interview with the Financial Express report, HMD Global VP Sanmeet Kochhar says, India is an important bazzar for Sourcing and Sales. The company is thus looking to launch affordable 5G mobiles in the country. To promote local manufacturing, Indian Goverment has announce up to 2.5% custom duty on some spareparts of mobiles on its Union Budget 2021.
Additionally, the custom duty on chargers PCB and other parts gets 15% and 2.5% duty respectively. While this happened today(Feb. 1), Sanmeet said that the company was seeking more clarification regarding the custom duties for Parts. Either way, HMD Global, although studying options to see India as an Export Hub, is in no plans to set up a factory on its own. Recently, Lava started making mobiles for the company.
And as Sanmeet says, 100% of Nokia mobiles selling in the country are made in India. And after getting about $230 million from partners like Google, Qualcomm, Nokia Technologies, this is only going to get better. Apart from this, Dixon Technologies, a big Consumer Electronics company also announce a tie-up with HMD Global. And for offline, Nokia seems to have 700+ distribution channel partners.
Sanmeet also iterates that Nokia mobiles are unique from other brands in terms of software. And it is no mood to change that. He adds that the company is looking to launch customized products for India but will continue to have the better and future-proof software.
