Samsung heir visiting India, possibly for 5G-related talks

According to Yonhap News, Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong is currently visiting India “to check the world's largest smartphone maker's businesses there.” While there's no official word on his order of business in the country, it is being speculated that Jae-yong's visit could be in relation to Samsung making further investment in India and comes on the heels of the company shutting down its last smartphone factory in China.

Jae-yong could also meet with Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, for talks on the latter's plans for deploying 5G networks in India. Reliance, under the Jio brand, has the largest 4G network coverage in India, and it built that network with Samsung's 4G equipment. Reliance is the sole buyer of Samsung's 4G equipment in India; the Korean giant is hoping to change that by teaming up with other operators in the country for 5G equipment, but Reliance will most likely continue to be its biggest customer.

Jae-yong's current visit is likely to be more focused on the investment angle, as he will reportedly meet the country's prime minister during the visit. Samsung is said to be looking at Vietnam and India as two key locations for making up for the complete half of production in China, and the company has already been making its devices locally for the Indian market under the country's Make in India initiative. The initiative was launched under current Indian PM Narendra Modi's leadership.

Abhijeet Mishra - Editor-in-Chief

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First Samsung device: SGH-D500

Abhijeet's writing career started with guides for custom firmware for Samsung devices (including the original Galaxy S), and he moved to SamMobile in mid-2013 and worked up the ranks to Editor-in-chief. In addition to phones and mobile devices, his interests include gaming on both PC and console, PC hardware, and spending countless hours on YouTube watching videos on tech, movies, games, politics, and internet dramas.

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