Jeff Bezos bets on 'Indian century', gives MSMEs $1-billion push

Commits to exporting $10 billion India-made goods by 2025.

Amazon.com Inc Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos said on Wednesday that his company would invest an additional $1 billion (about Rs 7,000 crore) to help bring small businesses online in India, and also committed to using the retail giant’s “size, scope and scale” to export $10 billion of made-in-India goods by 2025.

Bezos’ India visit — for the maiden edition of his firm’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME)-focussed event, Amazon Smbhav — comes at a time when the Competition Commission of India (CCI) is probing his company, as well as Walmart-owned Flipkart, on complaints of deep discounting practices and tie-ups with preferred sellers.

Seeking to reach out to critics, Bezos, donning traditional Indian attire, said his company was committed to being a long-term partner of India.

“Actions speak louder than words,” he added, addressing a packed house in New Delhi.

“We’re making this announcement now because it’s working...When something works, you should double down on it.

I want to make a prediction for you. I predict that the 21st century is going to be the Indian century. The dynamism, the energy… everywhere I go here, I meet people who are working in self-improvement and growth. This country has something special, democracy,” he said.

“I make one more prediction for you: In this 21st century, the most important alliance is going to be the alliance between India and the US,” Jeff Bezos added. The firm aims to digitise 10 million MSMEs with the proposed investment. In addition to providing training and enrolling MSMEs into its programmes, Amazon will help them work on cloud technology through specialised Amazon Web Services offerings at low costs. It will also establish 100 “digital haats’ in cities and villages throughout India.

Huawei likely to conduct trial runs of 5G waves for Airtel, Vodafone

Sources said both Airtel and Vodafone have also joined ZTE, Nokia and Ericsson, apart from Huawei, for conducting the 5G trials.

Company News : Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei is expected to conduct 5G trials for Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, sources said, as the central government finalises the trial runs before the spectrum auctions.

Sources said both Airtel and Vodafone have also joined ZTE, Nokia and Ericsson, apart from Huawei, for conducting the 5G trials. Reliance Jio will rope in South Korean equipment maker Samsung.

State-owned BSNL is also likely to go with ZTE. The firms have submitted applications for 5G trials, industry sources said.

The Chinese firm had had come under a cloud after there were allegations that its electronic and telecom devices helped China to spy on US corporations and agencies. The firm has been barred in Australia and Japan, but welcomed in Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

The central government had even constituted a committee headed by its principal scientific advisor to decide on Huawei’s participation in the 5G trials. The trials would establish use cases in the country as a precursor to the full-fledged launch of 5G services.

However, last month, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said the government will allocate airwaves to all telecom service providers for conducting trials of super-fast 5G network, and will not bar any equipment suppliers in the trials. The stance had spelt relief for Chinese telecom gear maker Huawei, which rivals western equipment makers such as Ericsson and is facing curbs in the US.

Huawei India CEO Jay Chen had earlier stated the company firmly believes that only technology innovations and high-quality networks will be the key to rejuvenating the Indian telecom industry.

“We have our full confidence in the [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi government to drive 5G in India. We have our full confidence in Indian government and industry to partner with best technology for India’s own long-term benefit and also for cross-industry development,” Chen had recently said.

Huawei to soon launch Kirin 990 chipset-powered 5G-ready devices in India

According to the company, the 5G version of the chip will be available in India with the upcoming line up of Huawei smartphones.

China's Huawei Consumer Business Group on Tuesday announced that it will bring its flagship Kirin 990 system-on- chip (SoC) in India soon. The Kirin 990, world's first 5G-integrated mobile chipset, is the first mobile SoC to come with 10.3 billion transistors, thus making it incredibly fast and efficient.

According to the company, the 5G version of the chip will be available in India with the upcoming line up of Huawei smartphones.

"As one of Huawei's key markets, customer-centric innovation is at the heart of everything we do in India. We have always believed in bringing the very best to our consumers by continuously focusing on innovation and making the experience better, every single time.

"The Kirin 990 is the very pinnacle of smartphone technology today and will leapfrog consumers into a new era of 5G. We are glad to announce a chipset that will revolutionise the way people use their smartphones," Tornado Pan, Country Manager (Huawei Brand), Consumer Business, said in a statement.

Kirin 990 and Kirin 990 (5G), launched during the IFA earlier this month, are also designed to bring elevated performance, energy efficiency, AI capabilities and photography experience to an extensive group of 4G smartphone users.

Featuring 7 nm+ EUV manufacturing process, Kirin 990 (5G) is integrated with a 5G modem, and occupies a smaller area while consuming less power.

The Kirin 990 SoC features a three-level power efficiency structure, comprising of two ultra-large cores, two large cores, and four small cores, with a dominant frequency up to 2.86 GHz.

Business Standard