India finally emerging as an indigenous consumer tech manufacturer?

For long India has been handling IT backend for some of the world’s top companies, probably all of them. At the same time, most new and shiny gadgets are first released in the US and Europe before India sees them, some don’t last long enough to make it here. The consumer market in India hasn’t been on top of the lists for most companies. Nokia, Sony and HP are probably the few companies that have bee consistent with their product portfolios in the consumer segment. There is an uptake as decision makers realize India has the spending power, at the same time this growth is now (finally) giving rise to indigenously built gadgets.

From MicroMax Mobiles to Notion Ink’s Adam, suddenly there seems to be a wave of desi companies releasing consumer gadgets that offer capabilities at par with those from established players. One interesting commonality between all these new companies is that they are all coming out with mobile products – cell phones or tablets. While there are private players, there is the Indian government’s ambitious $35 tablet. Some of the tablets coming from India:

Notion Ink’s Adam:

(Image credit FastCompany)

They made a big splash with their Android based tablet but having been MIA ever since. They ran into problems but the team believes they will be able to deliver.

Olive’s 3G Tablet:

(Image Credit Today24News)

Making quite a bit news along with Infibeam’s Phi, the Android based tablets might be able sell themselves.

Infibeam’s Phi:

(Image Credit NewsFactor)

Available on both Android and Windows for Rs. 15,000.

Tava Tech’s Tablet:

(Image Credit SiliconIndia)

This one sounds interesting since they plan to take the tablet form factor to more daily use applications.

Government’s sub-$35 tablet:

(Image Credit Rajiv Makhni)

Kapil Sibal’s and India’s reputation are at stake on this one. While the prospect for a highly economical tablet for education sounds good, there is a quite a bit of skepticism around this device.

Coming to the cell phones, we’ve got brands like MicroMaxx, Lava, Spice and quite a few more. Things are looking good for starters. Availability of platforms like Android and being able to import hardware, India is finally poised to become a player in the global gadget market as well.