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Reliance plans to sell cellular phones

The Reliance group, India's largest conglomerate by sales, is planning to assemble and sell cellular phones as part of its foray into the telecoms sector, a leading business daily said on Wednesday.

"The cellular phone project is a key part of its plan to offer limited range mobile services throughout the country," the newspaper said.

A Reliance spokesman declined to offer any comment on the report.

The Reliance group is India's largest conglomerate with total sales of Rs 590 billion.

Reliance Industries, India's biggest petrochemicals maker and Reliance Petroleum Ltd, the country's largest private sector refiner, are the group's two main companies. The project will be implemented by affiliate Reliance Infocom, which is busy laying the country's largest fibre-optic network to provide voice and data services, the paper added.

The daily said Reliance Infocom will import components from China and South Korea for assembling the cellular phones. These will be sold to consumers at Rs 2,500-3,000 ($53-$64) per set, much lower than Rs 10,000 charged by other manufacturers.

The project will help Reliance Infocom become a big player in the telecom sector as it has the licence for basic phone services in the western state of Gujarat.

The government plans to allow fixed line telephone companies to offer limited range mobile services through the wireless in local loop technology.

Cellular operators are up in arms over this move fearing that their customers would jump ship to the cheaper service.

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