Apple to launch iPad mini in India @ Rs 21,900

Apple to launch iPad mini in India @ Rs 21,900

 

Apple, whose valuation in thestock market fell below $500 billion on Thursday, has reportedly launched iPad mini, fourth-generation iPad and Apple TV in India today. This comes less than a week after the company rolled out iTunes Store in the country, which has not been its priority for long.

iPad mini, which has a 7.9-inch touchscreen, has come to India at starting price of Rs 21,900 for the 16GB Wi-Fi-only version. The 32 and 64GB Wi-Fi-only versions of the device cost Rs 27,900 and 33,900 in the country, respectively. The 16, 32 and 64GB Wi-Fi+4G iterations of Apple's mini-tablet have been priced at Rs 29,900, 35,500 and 41,900, respectively.

The manufacturer has officially launched the fourth-generation iPad in India today. Compatible with 4G networks, the tablet has a 9.7-inch touchscreen with Retina display technology and runs on A6X dual-core processor. The 16, 32 and 64GB Wi-Fi-only variants of the latest iPad are priced at Rs 31,900, 37,900 and 43,900, respectively. Similarly, the 16, 32 and 64GB versions of Wi-Fi+4G enabled iPad cost Rs 39,900, 45,900 and 51,900, respectively, in India.

iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad were showcased by the company on October 23 in the US and began shipping a week later in the international market.

 

 

Free roaming likely from March 2013

 

After announcing plans to abolish roaming charges for mobile users when traveling within India from next year, the telecom department is likely to ask operators to implement this consumer-friendly move from March.

Mobile phone companies have opposed the government's plans to do away with roaming charges, which accounts for about 10% of their revenues, and have warned they would be forced to increase tariffs to offset this loss.

According to an internal DoT note (dated November 23) reviewed by ET, the department has listed this consumer-friendly move amongst 'key initiatives to be completed within the next three months'.

By March, the department also wants to expand the mobile number portability (MNP) provision and allow consumers to retain their numbers when they move to a new city or any location in the country without having to pay roaming charges. At present, MNP, the facility that allows customers to retain their number while switching operators, is restricted to a circle. For instance, a Delhi customer can switch to any operator within the metro, as this is considered to be the 'base circle' for that number.

The Cellular Operators Association of India, the body representing mobile phone companies on the GSM platform such as Vodafone and Bharti Airtel, has criticised the government's plans to abolish roaming charges, and has maintained that the DoT must first sort out a slew of policy-related issues, including migration to the unified licence, before asking telcos to do away with this charge.

Telcos oppose free roaming

Mobile phone companies have cited reasons ranging from higher tariffs, to security threat, undesirable competition to end of the concept of STD in opposing the move to do away with roaming charges.

"Currently, the roaming charges are borne only by those who avail of the roaming service. Operators would need to recover this loss in roaming revenues leading to tariff increase which will be equally borne by the non-roaming customer base. To create a new tariff equilibrium, the tariffs in some non-affluent parts of country will go up and in other parts will drop," said an executive with a leading GSM operator.

Mobile phone companies also say that removal of roaming charges would lead to free-flow of SIMs across circles on a permanent basis.

"It is possible that sims or mobile connections of the circle that offers lowest STD tariff in the country, would be picked up by customer residing in other circles, who will use these to make discounted STD calls since the tariff in their own circles are higher. This potential revenue loss on account of this tariff arbitrage would make it necessary for the players to adopt a single tariff pan-India, thereby also resulting in a doing away of 'Local' & 'STD' as a concept," the executive quoted above added.

Executives with telcos also said that 'end of STD as a concept would lead to huge revenue impact to the operators', which the industry would not be able absorb, 'especially in the wake of high spectrum costs'.

"There are more than 10 national long distance operators (that carry STD traffic) - in the event of merger of carriage charges with local tariff, the manner in which these operators will be compensated is unclear. In any case, it is ultimately up to the operator who will need to absorb this cost. Hence, it is possible that this might lead to a scenario where the carriage cost has been removed, but a differential terminating cost would become necessary because of the interconnection and call-routing issues which would need to be taken up between operators afresh," said an executive with another mobile phone company