Apple in talks to launch CDMA iPhone in India: report

Apple is holding discussions with Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices about bringing an iPhone using CDMA, or code division multiple access technology, to India, the newspaper said.

An iPhone based on another mobile standard, GSM, or global system for mobile communications, is already available in India through the operators Bharti AirTel and Vodafone Essar, a unit of Vodafone Group.

The report that a CDMA-based iPhone could be coming to India comes just days after the Journal said Apple plans to make a CDMA version of its iPhone that Verizon Wireless will begin selling early next year in the United States.

AT&T, which uses GSM technology, has been the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the United States since the touchscreen smartphone was launched in 2007.

"Tata has been in talks with them (Apple) for four to five months now," the Journal quoted a "person familiar with the negotiations" as saying.

The Journal said launching a CDMA phone in India would give Apple access to more customers in the world's fastest growing telecom market, which is adding around 18 million users a month.

It said roughly 20 percent of India's 670 million wireless users have CDMA phones.

Daryl Chiam, a senior analyst at research firm Canalys, told the Journal that Apple accounted for less than one percent of India's smartphone market share in the first half of 2010.

(c) 2010 AFP